Neumann is hosting an exhibition of artwork by Annette Alessi and her studio friends in the McNichol Gallery from March 20 through April 22.

The opening reception for the artists is scheduled for Saturday, March 29, from 2-4 p.m. in the gallery.

Alessi, an award-winning fine artist, defines her job as “opening the heart of another.” Her diverse body of work includes commissioned children's portraits, figure drawings, landscape paintings, seascapes, florals, animals, and book illustrations.

Trained as a fashion illustrator, Alessi spent the first 10 years of her career in the fashion advertising industry before teaching herself how to paint landscapes with pastels. In 2006, she met Karl Kuerner, a protege of Andrew Wyeth, at the Darlington Art Center. Kuerner became a mentor, introducing Annette to oil painting, which eventually became her primary medium.

Her work, including a large “Brandywine Valley Landscapes” collection, has exhibited locally and nationally and appeared in numerous published collections.

Alessi welcomes visitors to her home studio in Garnet Valley, PA, where many works can be seen and purchased. To contact the artist, visit her site at www.alessicreations.com.

The exhibition will also include works by two of Alessi’s studio friends, Roberta Gerard and Carol Slocomb Strukelj.

Gerard is a Delaware representational fine artist who enjoys painting landscape and figurative subjects. She works in studio and in plein air in a variety of mediums but most often in oil and pastel.

She attended college at the Pratt Manhattan Center and Long Island University where she studied illustration, fine art, and art education. In recent years her primary focus has been creating a body of work that is more representative of her impressions and vision of the world, an approach strongly
influenced by her faith and appreciation for nature.

Strukelj developed an interest in watercolor while studying at the Delaware Art Museum and the Omega Institute (USC, Long Beach). She studied Impressionist Art at the Barnes Foundation and art therapy at Southwestern College in New Mexico and Allegheny University. After raising children and living in Shanghai, China, she returned to Delaware and began drawing and painting again in 2013.

She joined the Howard Pyle Studio Group in June 2023. Her style employs a loose realism leveraging bright colors and light, with the goal to create beauty and serenity in her paintings. Carol exhibits her work at various shows in the Delaware area.

McNichol Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and by appointment by calling 610-558-5626. 

To see the full arts schedule on campus, visit www.neumann.edu/arts.