Arts for ACT Gallery will feature the work of realist painter Barbara Gage Mulford in April.
An opening reception will be held Friday, April 2 from 6 to 9 p.m. in conjunction with Fort Myers Art Walk.
Scratch off an outer paint layer, revealing multi colored crayon below, leaned on a chalkboard ledge among 20 or so others…A floral bouquet piece winning first prize in first grade class. Barbara knew then that there was something very different about her art and that she would be a professional artist some day. “Art won’t pay the bills,” she was told over and over. Supporting herself at 18, she found employment in business building a lucrative career for the next few decades, raising a family, putting art on hold.
Following a mentor’s advice and lifelong dream, 2016 saw Barbara make the leap to career artist, first teaching art classes and moving to Southwest Florida, then exhibiting her own work. Barbara taught classes simultaneously at eight senior centers in Massachusetts and moving to Florida, at Arts for ACT Gallery and the former Art League of Fort Myers. Barbara is an active participant of the 2018, 2019 and 2020 Art Poems projects. She exhibits regularly at the Arts for ACT Gallery and performs live painting demonstrations during Art Walk in front of the gallery. Traditional painting techniques with oil or acrylic paint on canvas, panel or linen, with a representational, slightly expressionistic style and signing her work B Gage.
Barbara said she is excited to bring her love and appreciation of Florida’s birds, boats,and everglades to her first solo exhibition at the Arts for Act Gallery.
This exhibit continues to Monday, May 3. Arts for ACT Gallery is located at 2265 First St. in downtown Fort Myers. For more details, call 239-337-5050.
