NORWAY — The Matolcsy Art Center, 480 Main St., is reopening its doors as a gallery space at 5:30 p.m. Friday, April 6.

An exhibit titled 2 women 2 views will feature Barbara Traficonte and Judy Schneider. Both are accomplished painters with different styles but a similar process. They work “plein air” and have the same love of Maine’s landscape. 

Traficonte lives in Waterford with her husband. She shows her work throughout the state and has won numerous awards. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Douglass College at Rutgers University in New Jersey in 1963. Her major field was studio art and her minor fields were art education and American literature. After moving to Maine, she continued to take painting classes at Maine College of Art in Portland. She now paints and teaches others to paint.

Traficonte paints in pastel and oil, and chooses her medium depending on her subject matter and how it speaks to her. She is particularly inspired by and attracted to the flowers and landscapes of Maine in all their seasons.

Schneider lives in Norway. She went to college for interior design and has been a practicing interior designer for many years. She does commercial, residential and hospitality work. She is working with the Grand Summit Hotel at Sunday River.

She has also been painting and making prints most of her life. In May 2014 she received a master’s degree in studio art from Maine College of Art. She has been awarded residencies at the Pace House in Stonington and the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. The Maine landscape persists as a critical part of her art practice. Schneider is interested in abstracted landscape painting as a way to pursue a connection between the memory, history and physical experience of a place.

Judy Schneider

Barbara Traficonte

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