A series of new “rose art” oils by Westhaven painter Marvin Trump will complement the first-ever gathering of Trinidad sculptor Eleanor Seeley’s “Bronze Women” in July as the Westhaven Center for the Arts celebrates the joyous forms and colors of summer.

        The Trump-Seeley exhibit begins July 6 with an opening and reception for the artists on Sunday, July 6, from 1-4 p.m., and runs until July 28.

Trump, a longtime Westhaven fixture, worked as a prominent architect for decades before “retiring” and returning to his longtime love of drawing and sketching. Soon, that talent had blossomed into a full-fledged new career as a painter.

        His WCA exhibit of 23 new paintings, “Rose Art—Not Beaux Arts,” combines Trump’s architectural training with his eye for color, portraying the flat planes of buildings—including his longtime home on the rocks above Moonstone Beach—in warm, rosy hues.

It is an approach, Trump says, that offers “a different way of looking at buildings which might have been designed according to the French classical Beaux Arts school, but are being presented here as semi-abstract planes of color.”

“It is fun for an architect to design structures that are not constrained by gravity, codes, materials and money,” he said.

After serving as a pilot during World War II, Trump worked as an architect in Sweden and Denmark, spending the summers sketching. In 1952, while working for a Stockholm gallery owner, he met artists including Marc Chagall, Fernand Leger, Henri Matisse and Henry Moore. So when he retired, it was a natural return for him to begin studying with Eureka artist and teacher Michael Hayes several years ago.

        Complementing Trump’s “rose art” will be bronze sculptor Eleanor Seeley, whose figures of “Bronze Women” express joy, sensuality, life and grace. This will be the first time Seeley has shown the full collection of “women” in one venue—seven full-body pieces and two torsos.

        Originally from the upper Midwest, Seeley was inspired as a Wisconsin graduate student by a seven-foot sculpture by Gaston Lachaise, “Standing Woman,” an influence that has remained through her career as a teacher of art.

        Upon turning 60 and after a lifetime of making art, Seeley says, she turned seriously to the task of creating sculpture. Her passion for art and her love for dance combined in her "Women" series.

"Using women as my subject, the female form allows a sense of spontaneity – the sleek roundness, and the fluidity of one line/form flowing into the next, allowing movement, that could just as well be abstract as representational,” she says. “Form is just that, it is only the viewer's sense of familiarity that dictates subject.

“That they are women is secondary to the aesthetic sensuality of form,” she says. “Conversely, that they are women is essential."

Come see this unique display of some of the North Coast’s most prominent arts during the month of July at the Westhaven Center for the Arts. Serving the North Coast since 2001, the Westhaven Center is a non-profit art gallery showcasing North Coast artists, and a grassroots community center dedicated to expanding citizen engagement and exchange.