The Petersburg Area Art League is pleased to announce our May exhibitions. The shows will open on May 13, 2011, in conjunction with Friday for the Arts! from 6pm-9pm. PAAL’s Main Gallery will feature “School Lunch,” works by New York painter Lisa Weinblatt. The Upstairs Gallery will feature “If You Want Butterflies You Have to Feed the Caterpillars,” the green show by St. Joesph’s School.

Lisa Weinblatt describes herself as “a figurative painter whose imagery is informed through personal experience, imagination and direct observation. The paintings comprising “School Lunch” present images concerning the nature of relationships between men and women. My goal is to create humanistic awareness in a framework which is universally recognized.”

The “School Lunch” series is a pictorial essay of contemporary student life in real educational settings. Contemporary cross-cultural issues and their emotional attitudes are explored in the shared experience of school lunch. This body of work was generated from direct observation, drawing on location, afternoons in the lunchrooms of several New York City High Schools. The series has expanded to include university and college campuses.

“School Lunch” has been exhibited at universities and museums throughout the New York metropolitan area, as well as, with the College Art Association, the San Antonio Museum, the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, the Dishman Museum, Lamar University, Texas, and the Provincetown Art Museum in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Dennis Wepman, Curator of the Karpeles Museum in New York, states “Weinblatt incorporates a dynamic narrative in her paintings, implicit of the energy and tension of personal interactions.” School Lunch underlines perceptions which affirm cultural identity, brings together ideas espousing contemporary concerns and encourages a belief in the quality of human spirit.

“If You Want Butterflies You Have to Feed the Caterpillars,” is the title for this year’s St. Joseph’s School green art show. The story will be told with drawings of dinosaurs to Picasso inspired faces and flowers, and of course lots of butterflies. The center of the show will be a 3-D environmentally-friendly city built with scrap wood.

The Kindergarten through 8th grades will present their works to be judged by the public. So come learn how the butterflies return to the city and vote for your favorite art work.