New Art Exhibition Opens July 23 at 2:00pm

Noreen O'Leary - "Michelle" - 22" x 27" - oil on canvas

Two Women: Two Art Careers

Artists:  Noreen O’Leary and Sofya Suller

Curated by John Quatrale

Exhibition dates:
July 23 – October 28, 2011
Opening Reception:
Saturday, July 23, 2:00 – 3:30 pm

Location

Brighton-Allston Heritage Museum

20 Chestnut Hill Avenue
Historic Brighton Center, MA 02135
Hours: Tuesday – Friday and second and fourth Saturday Noon - 4pm

Soyfa Suller - "Park Street, Boston"

 

The Heritage Museum is pleased to present the art exhibition - Two-Women: Two Art Careers featuring Noreen O’Leary and Sofya Suller.  It’s an exhibition that samples the fine art of two long time Brighton residents and artists.  Both women combined another career with their art careers.  For Noreen it was education and for  Sofya it was architecture. Both are representational artists, with Noreen focusing on portraits and Sofya focusing on buildings and natural scenes.  Though their backgrounds, second careers and subjects are different, their careful attention to exact details in many of their paintings is very similar and thus very comforting to many viewers. The Heritage Museum opened in 2007 and this is their 10th exhibition.

Noreen O’Leary’s long career combined fine art and education. Her art training was through a five year program at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School. She is currently the Massachusetts Ambassador for the Portrait Society of America.
She also received advanced degrees in education from Tufts University and Lesley University and was an educator for many years.  Throughout most of her art career, the human face has always been her favorite subject, so portraiture in pastel, oil, pen and charcoal has been the basis of most of her work.  Her portraits capture precise expressions to guide the viewer to appreciate the mood of the person’s face. Her newer works focus on still lives and floral paintings and are just as realistic and precise as her portraits.  Her past exhibitions have included many galleries and museums.

Sofya Suller combined a long career in architecture and fine art. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia, where she was born. After graduation she worked as an architect and urban designer in Russia and in 1980, when she immigrated to the United States, she started working as an architectural designer in Boston.  Her early oil paintings and drawings have a rich architectural quality. She later watercolor paintings of many popular Boston scenes are both representational and some with abstract elements.  She is a past member of The Copley Society of Boston and has exhibited her artworks there as well as many regional galleries.