When your mom is a painter, you’ll probably find an artistic path yourself.
But that doesn’t mean you’ll follow the same style as her – or even your siblings. And the latest show at McGowan Fine Art will attest to that.
The exhibit is called Side by Side, and it features the paintings of sisters Bethany Cole Rymes and Hanna Cole Dahar. This exhibit is a special, limited-run kind of deal: it began Monday and runs until New Year’s Eve, so make sure you get over there quick.
If you end up buying a painting, you’ll be helping the Friends Youth Mentoring Program, which has addressed issues affecting New Hampshire youths including juvenile delinquency, school performance, school dropout and substance abuse prevention since 1975. A portion of the proceeds from art works sales will go to the program, so don’t be shy about breaking out the old wallet.
At the exhibit, you’ll see two dramatically different styles on display. Rymes is an abstract painter who has an intense focus on color, while Dahar is a representational painter whose works often depict her son’s toys alongside more traditional still life scenes. You’ll be able to tell who is who as soon as you walk in.
Another notable difference between the sisters’ works is the shapes of the paintings. All of the works by Dahar the Insider was privileged to see ahead of the exhibit were square and all of Rymes’s paintings were slim rectangles. And Rymes does not title any of her works, while Dahar does.
The up side to owning an untitled painting is that you can tell your guests it’s called “The Gathering of the Worms” or “Cheese Danish” or whatever else you want – and there’s no way to prove you wrong!
The up side to attending an exhibit featuring the works of two sisters is that it’s something kind of unusual and kind of cool. Rymes, who is somewhat of a fixture in the Concord art scene, said she’s never done a show with her sister before. In fact, “The last time I had a show was when I was at UNH in 2001,” she said.
Rymes said she had a little stretch there (okay, kind of a long stretch) where she worked a job that didn’t leave her much time to paint, and so she didn’t do anything with art for more than a decade.
“I really didn’t start painting again until 13 years after my BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts), and even then, until I found this studio space (above Pitchfork Records on Main Street) I really wasn’t able to work seriously,” Rymes said. “So this is my first show in 15 years – or even as a professional artist – and splitting it with Hannah is fantastic.”
The art is strong in this family. Hannah and Bethany may have picked up some tips over the years from their mom, Sally Ladd Cole, a landscape painter who has sold works out of McGowan before.
“My mother . . . introduced me to art at a very young age, and it has been a central part of my life ever since,” Rymes said.
And now that she has her studio above Pitchfork Records, she has a place where she can just concentrate on her work. And that’s just what she needed in order to get back into painting.
“I’m not somebody who can put in a little bit of effort,” she said. “I’m an artist that needs to paint on a daily basis.”
Dahar has been a high school art teacher for years, so she’s always been pretty involved with the arts. Rymes said that Dahar was doing some landscape paintings, like their mother does, before she started getting into her narrative paintings. But “in high school she was always doing really funny narrative stuff.”
You’ll see plenty of narrative stuff at the Side by Side exhibit, which McGowan owner Sarah Chaffee said was Rymes’s idea.
“She said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to do this to help benefit an organization in town?’ and she really liked the Friends Program,” Chaffee said.
And over the course of setting up the exhibit, Chaffee said she learned a lot more about the program than she knew before. She also said that this will likely be the first time McGowan has worked in partnership with the Friends Program (though she couldn’t remember exactly).
So what is it about the Friends Program that attracted Rymes? Surely there are dozens of local organizations worthy of donations. What’s so special about this one?
“My neighbors reintroduced me to the Friends Program a few years ago, and I felt that the program’s mission to mentor Concord’s youth was something that I really wanted to support,” Rymes said. “I thought that partnering with the program as part of the show at McGowan would be a great way to support the program while providing exposure in a way a simple contribution could not.”
She said preparing for this show with her sister was a lot of fun, “and I really hope we get a chance to do it again.”
If that day ever comes up, don’t be afraid to let us know.