The Bridge Gallery is proud to announce an exhibition featuring two outstanding artists in the community; Isabelle Truchon with her most recent oil paintings entitled Nature of This, and Keron Psillas featuring her impressionistic photography collection. The exhibition will open from Saturday, April 6, and run through Sunday May 5. The reception for the artists will be held on Saturday, April 6, 2013 from 6-8 p.m. at The Bridge Gallery, located at 8566 Shepherdstown Pike. Greater Washington D.C. jazz pianist Bob Sykes will be performing at the reception.

The Nature of This, is a body of work that focuses on Isabelle Truchon’s environmental surroundings, and how they reflect her perceptions about life. Relatively new to the area, Truchon has been adjusting to literally living in direct contact with nature, vegetable and animal; a far cry from her former suburban life in California. Truchon’s paintings explore the flora and fauna in a moody and evocative essence that she feels completely wrapped up in, and part of. Iconic portraits of her “nature” subjects, elevated to an esteemed stature, are embraced in a moody, and spiritual aura. In their essence, they capture both the beauty and the pitfalls of being animal, of being rooted, of growing wings. The series was originally created to honor the living surroundings that hold incredible power for the artist, yet as the paintings took on a life of their own, they became much more than this; working through the series of oil paintings, the images developed into mirror reflections of Truchon and her perceptions; in the end, the collection represents an autobiographical journey through the artist’s human soul.

This series is a collection of 30″ X 40″ stretched canvas paintings, accompanied by smaller studies on paper, mounted on wood panel. Truchon uses charcoal and a mixed media bag of oil based paints, pastels, and cold wax to produce her works. The artist uses rich, bold shapes created in a heavily textured and layered manner, composed in a simple, yet moody setting of obscure negative space.

Keron Psillas has been a lifelong Shepherdstown resident, but has spent the last eight years traveling and working as a professional photographer. She divides her time between Portugal, Shepherdstown, Northern California, and all places in between. She has worked with the finest photographers in the world, including Jay Maisel, Freeman Patterson, and Art Wolfe. She continues to assist Sam Abell, National Geographic, 35 year veteran photographer, and Arthur Meyerson, legendary commercial photographer, in workshops in the U.S. and abroad.

Psillas leads custom tours to Brazil and Europe for photographers and equine enthusiasts. Insider access to the finest Lusitano breeders on several continents gives her the opportunity to create stunning images of these magnificent animals. In 2011, she co-authored Meditation for Two with Dominique Barbier, a Master of French Classical Dressage. She is currently working on a new book project of impressionistic equine photography and another project that has taken her to the Czech Republic and Poland. Selected images from both of these projects can be seen in this exhibition. Though this is her first exhibition, Psillas’ work can be seen in Dressage Today, Horse Connections, Horses for Life, and a plethora of other horse related publications.. Her photographic philosophy can be captured by a quote from Antoine de St. Exupery:”What is essential is invisible to the eye, one must see with the heart”.

For more information about the gallery, exhibit and artists, please contact Kathryn Burns at

The Bridge Gallery, 304-876-2300, cell phone at 301-667-9734, or email, aartskb@msn.com