InLiquid said goodbye to our friend and member Nancy Kress, who passed on January 17, 2021. Nancy’s natural love for life and the arts was irresistible; she brought a sense of joy to those around her through both her warm-hearted personality and her paintings.
Nancy Kress had been studying art for over 20 years. She took classes at Fleisher Art Memorial, PAFA, and Main Line Art Center. Her work has been exhibited throughout the Philadelphia area, including MUSE Gallery, Art in City Hall, the Philadelphia Sketch Club, and with InLiquid at the Painted Bride Art Center. She has won the Maxim B. Gottlieb Award from the Fleisher Art Memorial, and her paintings were featured in the 2013 film Dead Man Down. Nancy’s studio practice was an integral part of her life in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, and it persevered after her 2011 diagnosis with ovarian cancer.
Nancy began her career in painting with an emphasis on realism, figurative work, and en plein air, and later moved toward abstraction as a way of inviting the viewer’s gaze and interpretation. Her later landscapes and figures emanate intense color to convey a distinct mood, rhythm, and atmosphere. One can see, through these paintings, the vestiges of her formal training combined with her own unique rendition of abstraction. Her spirit is embedded in each piece and demonstrates how she was drawn to her subject, whether it was an individual or a landscape.
The Philadelphia art community will miss Nancy Kress. We will feel the loss of her vibrant creative practice, but more so, we will miss her outgoing personality and kind soul. Nancy is survived by her husband Edward Kress, her children Dana, Evan and his wife Paula, and Emilie, and her granddaughter Myla.
- Lily Horner
To paint is to connect my spirit to my mind.
My current direction is towards the abstract. After years of a realistic focus, I feel that I am now breaking thru to an absolute place in the abstract. Finally, I truly realize that my painting can be anything that I want, using the subject but incorporating an inner projection without restriction.
One can identify a pathway, of some form, in many of my paintings. This is my way of inviting the viewer to move thru the space and atmosphere that I have created. I am inspired by and strive to reflect on the “pull of attraction” that I perceive in nature. My work depicts the physical aspects that exist, and at the same time, encompass an underlying abstract essence.
2012
Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA
1984
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA
1980
Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA
2012
Paintings selected and filmed in set design for the movie Dead Man Down
1981
Director’s Choice, Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA
Maxim B. Gottlieb Award
2013
Studio Visit Magazine, Winter edition
2012
35th Anniversary Show, Muse Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Absolutely Abstract Show, The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Philadelphia, PA
2011
Moving Thru, Muse Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2010
New Members Show, Muse Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2009
32nd Anniversary Show, Muse Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2008
Six of One Artist Group Show, Muse Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2007
Collaborative/26, Viking Gallery, Bryn Mawr, PA
2002
Saint David’s Church, Wayne, PA
1999
136TH Annual Small Works, The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Philadelphia, PA
1998
The Gallery at Reinboth & Company, Lambertville, NJ
1997
Wren Fellini Gallery, Bryn Mawr, PA
1991
128TH Annual Small Works, The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Philadelphia, PA
