Phillips Gallery hosts exhibit and painting demonstration

Phillips Gallery hosts a painting demonstration and opening reception for an exhibit titled, Sculpting In Paint with Missoula-based artist Sheri Nagy on March 1.  

The exhibit will feature several of her works in oil and bronze wildlife sculptures. 

 “For many years, sculpture was my main passion and the means to portray wildlife and the human figure. In recent years I have found that oil painting gives me a greater scope to express my love for the natural world,” Nagy said in a press release.

“I have found a great preference for the use of a palette knife in my painting process and find it gives more satisfaction than using a brush with the resulting texture and shape of the paint. Thus ‘Sculpting In Paint’ as the name of the exhibition became clear! I hope to give the viewer a window to the way I see the world and promote the desire to look again, maybe in a different way,” she continued.

Born in Bozeman, Nagy graduated with honors from Montana State University with a bachelor of fine art degree.  She works from her studio in Missoula and does plein-air painting as much as possible. 

Her work in sculpture led to being commissioned to create a bronze sculpture for the Veterans Memorial Park in Renton, Washington, that depicts an eagle sheltering the world under its wing. The passion for sculpture influenced the way she sees a landscape and transformed her oil painting techniques so that she uses a palette knife exclusively to carve out the forms in most of her paintings. Wildlife of the northwest is the subject of most of her sculpture work.

She has participated in numerous art shows including the American Artists Professional League in New York, The C.M. Russell National Art Show, Great Falls, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Art Show in Colorado and the Art on the Town in Washington.

The public is invited to attend the reception, which begins at 5:30 p.m. with Nagy’s demonstration of her palette knife painting techniques. The reception concluded at 7 p.m.

The Sculpting In Paint exhibit will remain on display until March 30. The gallery is located inside the Kalispell Center Mall, 20 N. Main St. For more information call 309-2335.

    From Above St Mary’s Falls, an oil painting by Sheri Nagy. (Photo provided)