Painter seeks to capture ‘the play of the moment'

Warwick - “I am painting energy. It is not light as is the subject of the impressionists, but the energy as the means and the subject,” is how Phyllis Lehman describes her own paintings. “The painting is the result of the combined energy of the media, the subject and my energetic response. It is the play of the moment.” A painting major at the University of Michigan, Lehman also studied drawing and lithography with David Ben Shaul in Jerusalem. Lehman has taught art in public schools in Warwick, New York City and in Cincinnati. She has exhibited her paintings both nationally and internationally, in such diverse locales as New York City, Mississippi, Michigan, Florida, Mexico and Israel. Lehman’s work is “impressionism gone wild, under the influence of the energy of places she’s visited” wrote Laura Stewart in the Daytona Beach Sunday News Journal in a review of an exhibit of Lehman’s work at the Art League of Daytona Beach. The artist prefers a technique known as plein aire which means painting on location, inspired by the energy of the moment. Her works in acrylic and water-based crayon “because they are more portable than oils, allowing me the freedom to work with the energy of the moment.” “I am most wholeheartedly in the creative flow when I am in celebratory and playful relation to myself, my colors, my brush or crayons, the paper and my subject,” she said. A graduate of the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, Lehman is also an energy therapist with a practice in Warwick. For more information call 845-258-4563. Works by the two artists are available for purchase at Port of Call through April 6. Port of Call is located at 40 Main St., Warwick, and is open from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. Sunday.