Isalos Fine Art

Vaino Kola: Penobscot Bay, oil on canvas, 24" x 62"

We've shown the work of Vaino Kola since 2004, when we filled the entire gallery with his Paintings of Two Islands: Iceland and Deer Isle show, and every year the arrival of a new painting is  a greatly-anticipated event. This year we've collected a group of his etchings and paintings spanning over thirty years of his career, including his newest oil: Penobscot Bay.

Vaino Kola: Sundown, oil on canvas, 24" x 48"

Kola, a Deer Isle resident, finds inspiration from the woods  and shoreline near his home, but his paintings require months of quiet solitude in his studio, resulting in images that convey his inner landscape as much as the  one outside. Penobscot Bay blends elements from Causeway Beach with Kola’s imagination.

Vaino Kola: Roots, etching, 9" x 12"

Kola, born and  raised in Finland, received an M.F.A. from Yale  University and taught  at Wheaton College in Massachusetts for 26 years before retiring to Deer Isle to paint full time. His paintings hang in over forty museum and corporate collections. Well, that's the  kind of propoganda we like to hear  about artists, but from my point of  view, getting to know Vaino and his work has been one of the things  that has made having this gallery worthwhile. You're not likely to find anyone more dedicated to their work, and yet so modest about  it.

Vaino Kola: Winter Light, Homage to I.B., etching, 19" x 18"

One difficulty in hanging the  show was that each painting and etching deserves a quiet space around it. With six large paintings and eleven framed etchings (two of them quite large) this took some effort, but if you spend some time with any one  of these, you can get a sense of what it  took to create them: the  months of quiet solitude, the meditative focus, and of Kola's awe for the natural world around him.

Vaino Kola: Dusk, oil on canvas, 36" x 56"

These are all things I could use more of in my day to day life. As Stonington's Main Street experiences it's usual early July chaos, it's nice to step into an oasis of relative calm here in the gallery. Hope you can check it out.

On display at Isalos Fine Art from July 2 through July 18, 2010.

Artist's reception Friday, July 2, 4 -7 PM, in conjunction  with Stonington Galleries First Friday Open Gallery Night.