Last weekend, Kerry Riley and David Johnston kicked off their show of painting and photography at Meaford Hall, Recent Works, with an opening reception in the galleries.

David and Kerry are long-time Meaford residents, who met at Ryerson University, where Kerry studied applied art and design and David taught interior design.

David has always painted. Since studying art and design at the Winchester School of Art and the Central School of Art in his native England, he has exhibited works in Toronto, Hamilton, and at local galleries.

Upon retiring from his professorship a couple of years ago, David took to his studio in the couple’s attached garage and indulged his passion for painting more than he’d been able to in recent years, often working into the wee hours. His output has been prodigious, as the new show reveals. David’s work combines stylized objective imagery superimposed on randomly controlled colour fields.

Kerry, a business owner and active community volunteer, who was part of the group that initiated the restoration and renovation of Meaford Hall, has continued to work in mixed media and drawing, designing a number of posters for community events and the emblematic scarecrow for Meaford’s Scarecrow Invasion. She has also refined a rare photographic eye, as this show reveals. Borrowing David’s digital SLR camera during the last year or so, she has caught unique glimpses of beauty hidden in landscapes and seemingly random still lifes. The images are printed as she’s captured them in the camera, with no post-processing or digital hocus pocus – just her clear, artistic vision.

You can catch the exhibit until January 7.