ARTIST’S PALETTE
FOUR WOMEN HEADLINE "NEAR AND FAR" ART SHOW 868 ESTATE VINEYARD EXHIBIT FEATURES ARTISTS ANNE STINE, LEANNE FINK, UTE GIL & KIM T. RICHARDS “WE ALWAYS KNEW THAT WE WANTED ART TO BE PART OF THE WINERY EXPERIENCE,” SAYS NANCY DELISO, A MEMBER OF ONE OF THE THREE FAMILIES
Ute's Colorful Menagerie
WHO FOUNDED 868 ESTATE VINEYARDS. (www.868EstateVineyards.com) The current “Near and Far” exhibit is the vision of Andrea Cybyk (http://AndreaCybyk.com), the vineyard’s art director. Her theme ties together the works of four women who know each other well, but who have very different approaches to painting. Andrea explains, “Ute’s work is almost hyper-near; you feel like you could reach right out and touch the fur of her animals. Kim’s first work on the wall was done on the property. Leanne’s paintings feature exotic places like Tokyo and Budapest. Anne’s paintings, while done locally, have a luminosity that gives them an otherworldly
UTE GIL
quality.” The exhibit runs through March 1.
https://www.utegil.com/
Ute's Barn Owl Combines Realism and Abstraction
Born and raised in Germany, Ute Gil learned traditional folk and silk painting. She left at 22 for Spain to study Spanish and continued her work in pastels and oil. By 1990, she was in the United States moving throughout the Mid-Atlantic, coming to Virginia in 2002. As the kids grew, she had more time to paint, and has devoted herself to it full-time for the last five years. “I love painting animals, especially their humanness,” she says. All of her works portray happy emotions because that’s the quality in animals that draws them to her. She works often in Western Loudoun County where she can visit the local farms and catch some of her favorite subjects: pigs, foxes and a vast menagerie of birds. “In the barn owl, you’ll see he is very realistic, but over here in the darkness there is an abstract texture. I love the tension between painting what is realistic and what is abstract,” she explains, adding, “The absence of images engages your imagination.” Ute Gil
Although she participates in the Western Loudoun Artist Studio Tour and local festivals, she otherwise is as elusive as her owl, so
ARTICLE MELINDA GIPSON
finding her in a show is rare. Most of her patrons are people she
PHOTOGRAPHY NEIL STEINBERG
already knows well. “What I love is knowing where my paintings end up and I see the smile on people’s faces. That’s what works for me.”
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Leesburg Lifestyle | February 2020