Lydia Boddie-Rice
at Joy Gallery, 498 1/2 West Main Street, Rochester, New York
Today, I write about "Renewal" as a stage in the life of an artist. To renew oneself, is to spend time getting back to the basics, to feel more like oneself inside and out. Part of this life as an artist is to be able to spend time in the studio creating new paintings and also be able to go out to galleries and look at what others have produced. Our community, here in upstate New York, has great creative drive and there seems to be renewed energy since the pandemic, which finds a voice in recent exhibitions that have opened this week.
I am impressed by the artworks I found at the Joy Gallery on West Main Street in Rochester ( call for information at 585 436-5230 ). Created by Lydia Boddie-Rice, in a solo exhibition she calls: " Rising on the Wind", one finds unique paintings and collage on view. We parked outside and opened a door to a whole new experience of art that implied movement and character. The motion considered by the artist is one of soaring into the sky, and many of the artworks on view conform to the shape of a kite, but that's not all!
Lydia Boddie-Rice really understands her subject and I am reminded of the statement written by Maya Angelou, "And Still I Rise". Lydia's art is about uplifting the human spirit, and it is more than plain portraiture. Somehow we engage in seeing into the personality of the people she portrays - starting with self-portraiture in her painting "Heliotrope 1". She is at the center of our attention with her face in the middle of a giant sunflower.
Lydia Boddie-Rice in "Heliotrope 1" at Joy Gallery
In another self-portrait she is at work at two stages in life - one, as a youngster with a paintbrush riding the waves, and then as the older and wiser woman she has become.
Self Portriat , 2023
Many of the artworks in this show start out as collage, and she is also working with water based oil paints giving a different look to the original paintings. She also makes prints of many of the works she creates and offers these for sale at the gallery as well. In one of the kites she features my colleague, Luvon Sheppard , and she calls this work "Sanctuary".
"Sanctuary" by Lydia Boddie-Rice
