Parable Local Artist Virginia Unseld is exhibiting a show called “A Parable: Pandemic Paintings” from January 29 to March 11, 2022, at the Washington Hall Gallery. Above left, Virginia shows her painting “Wanderer.” Above right, her painting “Offering” from a New Zealand beach adds a feather. Right, her painting “Like Stained Glass” displays the light from her most recent acrylic paintings. PHOTOS BY ANNE SCARFFE[/caption]

Local Artist Virginia Unseld is exhibiting a show called “A Parable: Pandemic Paintings” from January 29 to March 11, 2022, at the Washington Hall Gallery at 117 Eureka Street, Central City. The exhibit will be open Thursdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Gallery. Unseld was available to meet folks at the opening on January 29.

At the opening, Unseld said a parable is a story with a lesson, and this exhibit is a story through pictures. She liked the alliteration in “A Parable: Pandemic Paintings.” Her exhibit is in the Garden Room at the Gallery, which has good light and space for large paintings.

Unseld also has been working in the Stone Room, but on March 11, her space ends in both rooms. This is Unseld’s second solo show in this space as she exhibited her work from last year’s residency, too. Unseld also has exhibited and won awards at juried shows in the Gallery. She also worked at the Gallery in 1979.

In the past, Unseld has mainly painted with watercolors, oils and pastels, but last year she started painting with acrylics, which she hadn’t done since college. She earned a bachelor’s degree in art education at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania and received a master’s degree in art education from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Unseld pointed out a painting of trees and ice by the edge of a lake, called Breaking Through. It is a gray, acrylic painting, and with the brush marks it was a break away painting for Unseld.

With paintings such as “Like Stained Glass of Aspen Trees” and “Summer Whites” of flowers, it’s less about the subject but more about how you are applying the paint. For a painting of Lake Isabel above Brainard Lake, she had the lake to herself. A painting called “Winter Calligraphy” features South Beaver Creek. Two paintings, “Morning in the Adriatic” and “Facing God,” were painted in Croatia.

Paintings are about light, Unseld said. Painting is like a meditation. “I’m not worried about politics or anything. It’s a way to turn all that off.” She said she never does a painting she can’t live with.

When Unseld first came into the studio, she painted feathers. One of her oil paintings, “Offering” featured stones on a beach in New Zealand. She thought it needed something, so she added a feather. “Wild Iris” started out as a pastel painting, and then she sealed it with acrylic.

Then Unseld started doing people. “The Wanderer” features a person walking up a sidewalk flanked by huge buildings on both sides. “Friends” features three people walking up a street.

Unseld also taught a class, Introduction to Acrylic Painting, at the Gallery on Saturday, February 5, sponsored by the Gilpin County Arts Association.

Unseld has been painting the western landscape for more than 40 years, according to her website. Her work is about the act of joyous mark-making as much as about the subject she is painting.

She is both a plein air painter and studio painter. Unseld has exhibited extensively and has won many awards. She is a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of Colorado and the Colorado Watercolor Society and a member of American Women Artists, the Plein Air Artists of Colorado and Plein Air Painters of New Mexico.

Her website is at https://www.virginiaunseldfineart.com/. She can be reached at (virginia@virgniaunseldfineart.com) or phone 303-582-5724 to arrange a meeting at the gallery.