NAC Corner: Exhibit conveys ‘beach-ness’

Watching a slide show of her work on the office computer in the NAC Gallery, it was easy to see the theme of artist and NAC Co-op President Sue Parish’s upcoming show on July 3. Striped umbrellas, swimmers wrapped in towels emblazoned with tropical prints, inflatable tubes, miles of sand and rolling waves. Without knowing the title you could probably guess what threads the work together in Parish’s new exhibit: “Recurring Theme: The Beach.” 

The funny thing is this theme was never one Parish planned.

For over 30 years, Parish has captured the iconic summer scene of surf-and-sand on her travels and in her studio, both with her camera and with oil paints, drawn to the subject matter randomly rather than strategically.  It would be an odd commission for a painting here, a chance photograph there, never purposely unifying the theme, just work she would do among other projects.  But the beach is a place that has always had a certain draw to the artist in Parish for years.

“People tend to give themselves up to being at the beach,” Parish said of the subjects that often make it into her photographs. She described the experience to which beachgoers surrender themselves as almost sensual: skin exposed to the sun, the smell of salt water and sun block, the vibrant patterns of beach towels and swim wear.

The photographs depict beaches from her travels abroad and local outings, including some from Hawaii, Groton Long Point, Antigua, and Waterford Beach.

The paintings Parish has crafted over the years, most of which depict Waterford Beach, are simpler than her photographs. The brush strokes are airy, almost stark and minimalistic, a style inspired by artists like Milton Avery and Nicolas de Staël, breaking landscapes down into almost block-like slabs of color. Parish herself describes them as abstract, conveying the idea of what she calls “beach-ness," the essence of what the beach is rather than a literal representation of coastal geography. 

In contrast to the paintings, photography allows Parish more realism. The patterns and colors in her work are almost mesmerizing, especially the bold umbrella stripes and wild swim suit prints she captures in her images.  The photographs, unlike the paintings, almost always include people.  The human subject matter offers the viewer a narrative, and it seems as if the paintings are sketches of the scene in which Parish wants the narrative to take place.

An example is a photo Parish took in Antigua. Literally walking out the front door on the last day of her visit, Parish explained how she saw in the distance in front of her a woman reclining in the sand, face veiled by a wide-brimmed hat, looking off into the horizon. Parish said she grabbed her camera immediately and snapped the photo, describing the moment as one of her best photographic opportunities, a perfect image caught spontaneously.

“Some images you have to work for," Parish said, "but some are given to you like a present.”

Parish has been seriously involved in photography since attending college at Syracuse University in New York, where she developed a love for...well, developing photos. Some of her more recent work is done with a digital camera and Photoshop but Parish is glad to have had the training in a traditional dark room.

"If you’ve never been in a wet dark room," Parish said, responding to the applications on Photoshop and other digital media, "you don’t understand its roots.” 

Parish, who retired from teaching high school art after 32 years, currently teaches Photoshop at Montville Adult Education.  In her own work, Parish hand-colors black and white negatives using Photoshop.  She has found herself working primarily in digital moreso over the past year; over the course of her career as an artist most of Parish's images have been captured on film.

Although she identifies herself more as a photographer, the paintings in the show not only offer an visual counterpoint, but elude to an interesting history. Some of these works date back to 1973 and are not for sale because many are on loan from private collectors and patrons.  Parish has spent the past few months collecting her paintings from the various people to whom they were sold or given as gifts. Although she was reluctant to share them in this article, the stories behind this scavenger hunt are touching and make the unpopulated beachscapes a little more personal.

But whatever you infer from the images, the beach evokes very familiar memories in most of us.  Parish's show provides a tour through public and personal seascapes, exotic and familiar, no sun screen required.

-Joe Matovic

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