Salt & Light at the MAC
Salt & Light, the new show in the MAC Galleries, will open on Friday, May 29 with an artists’ reception from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm. The show runs through July 3, 2026, with artists’ talks in the galleries scheduled Thursday, June 25 at 5:00pm. All events are free and open to the public and will be held at the Marion Art Center, located at 80 Pleasant Street, Marion.
Salt & Light brings together painters Kim Gatesman, Christy Gunnels, and Barbara Healy, whose work celebrates the distinctive landscapes of New England – rocky shorelines, salt marshes, cranberry bogs, and open coastlines. Though united by place, each artist brings a singular vision to the canvas, exploring light, color, and atmosphere in her own way. The result is a rich conversation between perspectives, inviting viewers to look slowly at the land, water, and sky that define our remarkable SouthCoast region.
Kim Gatesman is a painter, printmaker, and an overall creative with a professional career that spans a range of disciplines and industries over the last 20 years. With numerous bodies of work, Kim covers a variety of genres from realism to abstract, colorful to black and white, and traditional to esoteric, all showing the same level of skill and dedication across her portfolio. She earned her MS, Arts Administration at Boston University, Boston and her MA BFA, 2D Studies (Printmaking) at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth,, MA. Kim grew up in the woods of Western Massachusetts, and now lives in Swansea where she also maintains her private studio.
Christy Gunnels, born in Magnolia, Arkansas, has lived and worked on the South Coast of Massachusetts all of her adult life. Her works are in collections around the United States, England, Canada, Taiwan, and France. She received her MFA in painting from The Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College where she studied with Regina Granne, David Diao and Allen Cote. For many years she was an art instructor and director of fine arts in the Wareham, MA Public Schools. She is a realist painter inspired by her surroundings, creating oil paintings from her garden, birds, and the marshes and ocean outside her home.
Barbara Healy is a contemporary, award-winning artist working in oils and acrylics. Her paintings are in many collections, including Tobey Hospital. A Connecticut native, Barbara fell in love with the South Coast, and her husband Shaun, while getting her BFA at UMASS Dartmouth, and stayed. Her studio in Dartmouth, MA has been on the South Coast Artists Open Studio Tour for 15 years. She is a Juried Artist Member of The National Association of Women Artists, Cape Cod Art Center, and also teaches painting.
More information can be found at marionartcenter.org/events.