Immortalizing the everyday

Cheryl Korb’s depictions of country life come to The River Gallery

NARROWSBURG, NY — The work of Pennsylvania artist Cheryl Korb will be featured at The River Gallery at 8 Main Street from Saturday, July 21 through Friday, August 24, in a show titled “Country Landscapes: My Own Backyard.” There will be an opening reception on Saturday, July 21 from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.

A self-taught artist from northeastern Pennsylvania, Cheryl Korb still lives on the farm where she was born. After raising a family of three children, she had time to pursue her dream, which was to make paintings inspired by Grandma Moses. She began painting the landscape she knows best: her own back yard.

Korb takes a walk each morning and picks up details to put into her painting that day. Working in a tiny studio, formerly a closet off of her bedroom, with a tiny window, she uses one-hair brushes to create paintings full of particulars of country life. Throughout these finely sketched works are people doing their chores, waving hello, sitting for a picnic, flying a kite, riding a bike. There are animals playing together, horses in the fields or hitched to a wagon, chickens eating grain from the barnyard, kittens sleeping in a ball. Old stone walls, covered bridges, tractors and pails and stables emerge between fields of crops in various stages of growing, trees flowering or dropping their leaves, distant hills or blankets of snow.

Korb says she has four subjects: spring, summer, fall and winter. She often can tell the exact week which the painting depicts. Her fine line and sensitive use of color have prompted comparisons to Oriental painting.

Cheryl Korb is known locally where she exhibits, teaches, and participates in fairs and auctions. She has received a number of awards for the excellence of her painting.