Wheaton church hosts landscape paintings by local artist Joel Sheesley

Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton is hosting the “Celebrating the Local Landscape” exhibit featuring local artist and painter Joel Sheesley, opening June 8 and continuing to July 31.

A gallery reception and artist talk will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, June 27, at the church, 935 W. Union Ave. Enjoy live music from 6:30 to 7:15 p.m. by harpist Hannah Muzzy and light refreshments.

At 7:15 p.m., Sheesley will speak about what he has learned as he has painted landscapes in DuPage County and the surrounding area.

In this illustrated talk, he will offer a brief history of his artistic journey to the landscape as subject. He will discuss his painting methods, his conceptual understanding of landscape painting, and his sense of the value and meaning landscape painting offers to viewers.

Sheesley is a painter whose 50-year artistic path has embraced a variety of genres. About 10 years ago, he turned toward landscape painting and has been captivated by it ever since.

Sheesley is professor emeritus at Wheaton College where he taught painting for 42 years. He has exhibited his work locally and nationally in galleries and museums. He recently completed artistic residencies with The Conservation Foundation, the Edith Farnsworth House, Forest Preserve District of DuPage, and the Shirley Heinze Land Trust.

Sheesley’s studio and home are in Wheaton where he lives with his wife, Joan.

In his artist statement, Sheesley said, “Inherent in the idea of ‘landscape’ is that land, an unbounded phenomenon, can be delimited. It can be sampled in discreet segments and pictured. That picturing can take many forms (I know a biologist who is a ‘landscape ecologist’). I’m working within the tradition of landscape painting because the picture of land that painting produces presupposes a sympathetic relationship between land and people, between a body of land and the hand of the artist. From time to time that sympathy has followed misguided paths, but the truth that people and land are interconnected remains. Whether we are aware of it or not, we all live in relation to a landscape. If in our present circumstances we begin to lose track of that relationship, painted landscapes may play a part in its restoration.”

For more information, contact Dawn Jewell, communications director, at dawnjewell@churchrez.org.