The Art League of Long Island will present an exhibition of assemblages and paintings from the 1970s to the present by prolific painter, sculptor, poet, and teacher, Lois Walker. The exhibition opens in the Jeanie Tengelsen Gallery on April 14 and runs through April 29. The artists’ reception will take place on Sunday, April 15 from 1 to 3 p.m.
Originally from the Midwest, Walker began her artistic journey as a poet after graduating from the University of Kansas with a B.A. in Humanities and a B.S. in elementary education, eventually broadening her artistic horizons to include sculpture and painting. She came to Long Island in the mid 1950s and began teaching in the Hicksville School District.
As a writer, she was first published in the late 1940s. She took up assemblage using found objects in the late ’70s, and began to paint in the early 1990s encouraged by her mentors, Paul Wood and Stan Brodsky.
After retiring from teaching in 1986, Walker devoted all of her time to her art and writing. She had been a mainstay of the Long Island Poetry Collective and an editor of its poetry magazine, Xanadu, and continued all her activities on behalf of the LIPC until the first years of the new century.
As an award-winning visual artist, Walker has also shown her sculpture and abstract paintings in galleries throughout Long Island, in New York City, and across the United States, as well as in Spain and Denmark.
“I have been writing poetry for years, but the sculpture began for me in late 70’s, painting in early 90’s. My interests are many — both aesthetic and cultural. Discovery is my inspiration and love of my materials is my actual starting point,” said Walker.
The Jeanie Tengelsen Gallery is open free of charge on Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and weekends from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Art League of Long Island is located at 107 East Deer Park Road in Dix Hills. For more information visit www.artleagueli.org or call (631) 462-5400.
