“H-E-R: Art In Five Voices” Art Reception & Gallery Talk

Five women artists will exhibit their work January 8 to March 2, 2025 at the Bernice Kish Gallery at Slayton House, 10400 Cross Fox Lane, Columbia, MD. A reception will be open to the public at no charge on Sunday, January 12 from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. A gallery talk with the artists will begin at 2:30 p.m.

The exhibit titled H-E-R: Art in Five Voices will feature the following artists whose work include paintings, sculptures and woodcuts:

Anne Barney, formerly from Ellicott City and now in Rehoboth Beach, DE, is a pastel and white-line woodcut artist. Her paintings are primarily of landscapes she photographs while hiking and she particularly likes those that can be seen only by foot. In 2021, she started making white-line woodcuts, an artform begun in Provincetown, MA by a group of women artists in 1916. She has exhibited in Rehoboth Beach, Lewes, DE and Easton, MD. 

Barbara Lawson, a former Howard County nonprofit executive and social worker for the Red Cross, creates found object assemblages out of materials she finds on the street, in the garbage, at yard sales and elsewhere. Many of her sculptures deal with societal issues, including racism, poverty, refugees and incarceration, though some of her pieces have a whimsical side. Her work has appeared at exhibits in Columbia, MD.

Originally from the Dominican Republic, LUSMERLIN is a multidisciplinary artist and chemical engineer. Along with being a performance artist, Lusmerlin is a photographer and painter in pastels and acrylics. All her art shares a thematic interest across media: womanhood, the immigrant body in space, and the scenes of daily life that accompany her journey of re-discovery since immigrating to the US in 2016. She has shown in galleries in New York City, Connecticut, Philadelphia, Frederick, MD and the Dominican Republic.

Malynda Madzel is the former owner of Custom Telemarketing Services in Columbia, MD and a dedicated nonprofit volunteer who served on numerous boards in Howard County. Although she and her husband have a large collection of works by local, national and international artists, she did not begin her own artistic career until 2020 when she started painting vivid abstracts with acrylics. Since then, she has had her own exhibits in Columbia and Baltimore City.

A member of the Baltimore Watercolor Society, Dora Diaz Strope was born and raised in Puerto Rico before moving to Washington DC to work as a translator. After her retirement, she chose watercolors as her art medium, working from her own photographs. She has exhibited at the Museum of Art, the Casa de Espana and the Palmas del Mar Gallery, all in Puerto Rico, and in galleries in Howard County, Maryland.