Donald Jurney is a Boston-based painter who I have featured previously on Lines and Colors.

Jurney paints landscapes that have something of a subtle, 19th century European feeling, while still being assuredly contemporary. His paintings are enriched by his masterful command of color, texture and value relationships.

It’s the latter, I think, that is the strongest aspect of his paintings. His compositions are tour-de-force examples of how value can make quiet scenes rivetingly strong. I particularly enjoy those scenes in which we view fields and mountains through screens of foreground trees.

Jurney’s work will be on display in a solo show at the new Quidley & Company gallery, at 12 Wilton Road, Westport, CT, opening October 22nd, 2016.

You can find a gallery of Jurney’s work on the Quidley & Company’s website.

Jurney’s own website is not regularly updated, most of his current news is posted to Instagram, where you will also find instructive works-in-progress.

I believe Jurney paints most of his work in France and Ireland, having traveled there on many occasions.

With the thought of paying back some of the opportunities afforded him in painting in Europe, Jurney and his wife have established a new Fellowship, designed to allow the awarded fellow the opportunity to likewise travel and paint in Europe.

The Donald & Kim Jurney Traveling Fellowship

The Fellowship was established in cooperation with the Newburyport Art Association, and is open to painters working in a traditional, representational manner, though they need not be a landscape painter.

The Fellowship grant for the chosen applicant is $5,000.00.

Applications must be received by December 15, 2016 for travel in 2017.

You can find out more about the Fellowship on the dedicated website. If you feel that this endeavor is worthwhile and would like to contribute to seeing it go forward, there is the option to make a tax-deductible contribution to the project through the Newburyport Art Association, which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit.

Originally from Minsk, Belarus, Maya Brodsky studied here in the U.S. at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the New York Academy of Art.

Her paintings focus on interiors and figures. At times they seem direct portrayals of everyday scenes, at other times they can be somewhat haunting, as if something is slightly amiss, but you can’t quite identify what.

Her compositions are rich with detail, but I never feel as though detail for its own sake — or an approach to hyperrealism — is the point; rather I come away with the thought that Brodsky is speaking to us with the visual texture of her subjects, using it to slow down our scan of the painting and draw us into the subtle emotional responses her work can evoke.

Her website does not seem to have been recently updated, but contains galleries of her work from 2008-2013. I found navigation a bit less than straightforward, but the two pages of most recent work are here and here.

Brodsky’s work will be on display at the Bernarducci Meisel Gallery in NYC in a solo show entitled “Behind Closed Doors”, that runs from September 8 to October 1, 2016, and is concurrent with a solo exhibition of works by her sister, artist Dina Brodsky, who I have featured previously on Lines and Colors.