Connections at Camellia

Count on the organizers at Camellia Art, that tiny gallery out on Pope Avenue on Hilton Head Island, to keep the creative ideas flowing.

The newest exhibit now in place, "Connections," is about personal artistic connections, and you'll want to plan to drop by and enjoy the featured paintings -- the work of the Lowcountry artist, Louanne LaRoche, paired with the work of her old friend and classmate, Ed Cahill, now of Georgia.

"I had a friend request," laughed LaRoche, explaining their recent Facebook connection. "It was so much fun and so unexpected to be in touch with Ed again, after something like 20 years."

Their first connection started back in 1973 when Cahill and LaRoche were art students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

They were classmates in the art department and actually spent four years together sharing studio space.

Hilton Head was LaRoche's new home and destination, after graduation, and the Red Piano Art Gallery, her new focus. Cahill went to Atlanta, where he directed his attentions at painting and graphic design.

"Often, during vacations and spring break, Ed would come to the island to enjoy the natural beauty here," LaRoche said. "He was taken with the waterways, the trees, the ocean and sea life, and all that makes the Lowcountry what it is for all of us. And nothing has changed."

The two lost touch when Cahill moved to Yardley, Pa., following his artistic pursuits. It was there that he became influenced by the New Hope School. Cahill said his style meshed with theirs, and he was inspired by the landscape in that new setting. Landscape and plein-air painting took on an even greater prominence in his work from that time forward. Cahill returned to Georgia in 1998, and though he continued painting, he started up an advertising business, too, which he continues today.

When LaRoche was at an alumni meeting at Carnegie Mellon this summer, she asked about her old friend Cahill. She felt that it was time to be in touch again, to come full circle and revisit the artistic energy they experienced in those early days in the studio.

"Reconnecting now, with our earliest foundation ... where we started ... re-emphasizes the way in which we form our artistic thoughts, apply our skills and, in a major way, determine our artistic outcomes," LaRoche said.

THE WORK

"It is great to be in touch and to have Ed here and see his plein-air work, particularly," LaRoche said. "It is so much fun to see his perspective of my environment through his eyes."

Two large paintings, "Spring Chartreuse" and "Final Color," capture the viewers' gaze and immediately draw us in for a close-up look. They most effectively convey Cahill's interest in landscape work and the impact of color that informs our appreciation of his paintings. The pieces -- one with the cool crisp tones of spring, the other with warm, autumn hues -- will involve you as your attentions are drawn into each work.

But watch particularly for "South Beach Crab," "Hilton Head Horseshoe Crab," "Hilton Head Conch" and "Shrimp Boat." They will delight on all levels. His familiar images build like a writer with words, as you take in the details of his work.

"Ed has kept his connection to the Lowcountry, and his outcomes express his devotion to the beauty and our particular natural treasures," LaRoche said.

The style of the artists is very different, but the show hangs so well together. Their palette choices are spot-on, and their colorsblend so ideally.

LaRoche offers a series of stunning new paintings, with bold new images, and you will be completely taken with "Game Day," a 36-by-26 inch piece that is more than involving. It is so interesting, compositionally, as you direct your attentions throughout thepiece, you will revisit it often. Here she offers a cluster of mostly blue-jacketed men, standing and positioned around a seated man and woman.

So much more than the image itself, LaRoche is anxious to present the viewer with a concept of looking beyond the subject of her painting to the background, what supports the image and absorbing the very abstract elements of the setting. You will find this particularly so in the imaginative "Market Ladies."

She continues to explore new images, and there is the beginning of an orchestra series in her imagination, I think. Don't miss the tuba pieces and the marching band spin. Again, while the subjects of the paintings are eye-catching, it is the pattern, the color, even the repetitive motion we note in the background that LaRoche wants the viewer to see.

Look forward to "Pink Skirt," a show-stopping, figurative piece in which LaRoche offers a seated lady, positioned close to the center of the work, dramatically filling the large space and set against a ground of orchid to purple with her characteristic squiggles. It is an intense, stunning painting.

"Picasso, I think, said he paints what he thinks about," LaRoche said. "I think that is one of the connections that unites Ed and me.We are both so taken with the environment ... what we see ... our visual take on the world."