Quidley & Company | 3/17-4/6 | Naples, FL

The Nature Journey

Artist Charlie Bluett celebrates a new collection at Quidley & Company Fine Art Gallery in Naples, Florida.

So many artists turn to nature for inspiration and for lessons in light and form, but artist Charlie Bluett, from Westfield, Vermont, takes it a step further in his abstract representations. Not only are the great outdoors a source for his ingenuity, but the objects he stumbles upon, more specifically sea glass from his walks on the beach, contain a story that only nature can tell. His show with Quidley & Company will showcase 15 to 20 new paintings, mostly depicting his sea glass genre, and further explores his poetic concepts.

“I’m not a realist,” Bluett explains. “I’m very much into natural objects and objects that have been on a journey, such as sea glass. That piece [of glass] has done something and it’s about connecting it to the history of the place it was found, and bringing it into an abstract form.”Into the Shore, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48"

Bluett likes to walk, think and find on his many strolls on the beach near his Vermont home. “The essence of my work is nature; it’s form, it’s myth,” Bluett express. “I want to create something that has that sense of completeness, formed and shaped by nature, and using color and form. It’s a moment like reading a good book or listening to a beautiful piece of music.
I want the work to be more of a feeling than necessarily a visual.”

This feeling is translated in Bluett’s many ethereal, colorful shapes depicted in layers of acrylic paint, working to create a sense of translucency. Seen in the piece All Shapes and Sizes, forms and shapes are on top of each other, melding and bubbling up. The technique Bluett employs almost looks as if the piece was created in watercolor.

“There’s a method to getting translucency,” Bluett explains, “built of thousands of strokes and certain temperatures—layer upon layer, but looks thin to the eye. Nature is not contrived or controlled, it’s a process. The best way to describe how my work should feel, is like standing over a small stream that has been frozen over and watching the water run down and seeing the bubbles beneath the ice, the shapes. It’s the elements below it, all being done by nature.”The Joy, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 48"

While most of the show work will be of Bluett’s Sea Glass series, there will also be glimpses of his other project he calls his Abstract Expressionism series. In Into the Shore, Bluett creates a sense of the weather and the depth of the sky and when walking on the beach. “I’d rather you feel the sand against your ankles,” he furthers. “I didn’t think I could create a landscape or seascape in my painting, but I experimented with a format involving turning my canvas 90 degrees as I paint. When you look at it, you know exactly where you are, because you feel it.”

Bluett invites his viewers to celebrate the finer things in life, a theme that is also present in his show collection with Quidley & Co from March 17 to April 6. “The finer things are free and right there,” he furthers. “There’s that extra bonus and all you have do is look down, like the sea glass on the beach. There’s a moment of peace.” —

Quidley & Company
375 Broad Avenue South • Naples, FL 34102
(239) 261-4300 • www.quidleyandco.com