By Chris Bergeron / Daily News Staff

Cheryl Clinton, "Boylston Tree Light: Summer Study I"

FRAMINGHAM - Rather than paint what a landscape looks like, Cheryl Clinton uses applies acrylics with a palette knife to reveal how the movement of light and water affect our perception of nature.

The co-founder of Fountain Street Fine Art, she is exhibiting in her Framingham gallery 20 paintings and studies that use sophisticated techniques to capture the ephemeral face of the natural world.

The Holliston resident described her show, “Intuitive Navigation,” as “a developing story about memory, reflection and the passage of time.″

She is showing and selling acrylics from three ongoing series of paintings in the first-floor gallery at 57 Fountain St., Framingham, in the Bancroft Building which houses the artists colony she helped found.

For these images, Clinton worked primarily in her studio rather than through “direct observation″ because, like the impressionists, she sought to create scenes that convey moods and emotions.

In “Mystery Light,″ sunbeams seems to shimmer off the surface of a river or lake, creating brilliant facets like a jeweler’s light reflected off a diamond. In “Boylston Tree Light: Summer Study One,″ Clinton has mixed bright blues with varied shades of green to suggest the effect of sunlight shining down through the branches off an elm tree.

Throughout her artistic career, she said the play of light on water has often been “a strong visual source for my work.″

Clinton described about nine smaller works in the show as “studies″ she made by using an acrylic gel medium to transfer a photographic image onto a canvas. She then adds color and detail with paints and a charcoal pencil.

Clinton said the show’s title refers to her own willingness to trust her “intuition″ when using somewhat varied processes to make images that often look differently from what she expected.

“When I start, I don’t have the least idea of how it’ll turn out. Sometimes ideas just happen. There’s always an element of surprise which I like,″ she said.

Instead of aiming for photographic exactitude, Clinton’s paintings exude an emotional, even a spiritual, atmosphere that’s subject to viewers’ interpretation.

“I hope my work elicits an emotional response from viewers,″ she said. “There’s a lot to see. It takes some time to really look″

For Clinton, beginning a painting without knowing how it will turn out adds an element of “surprise″ for herself and viewers.

“It takes some time to look,″ she said. “But the more you look, the more you see.″

Chris Bergeron is a Daily News staff writer. Contact him at cbergeron@wickedlocal.com or 508-626-4448. Follow us on Twitter @WickedLocalArts and on Facebook.

“Intuitive Navigation: Cheryl Clinton″
WHEN: Through June 8
WHERE: Fountain Street Fine Art, 59 Fountain St., Framingham
INFO: 508-879-4200;

Read the full article (PDF)

Exhibit highlights work of Fountain Street Fine Art founder