Café Ole -- Shayna Skolnik Exhibits New Paintings at The Art Gallery Greenbelt Municipal Building, Greenbelt, Maryland

January 12– February 28, 2005. A reception will be held for the artist on Sunday, February 6th from 2-4 in the afternoon. Washington Post article Feb 9, 2005

Have you ever sat at a café or restaurant, casually observing the other patrons stirring their coffee, reading their morning paper, or chatting with the waiters? Painter Shayna Skolnik explores this charming aspect of everyday life in her new series of paintings in watercolor and watercolor with ink. The series is the culmination of three years’ work; most of the paintings are based on actual places in southern Spain, where the artist resides for part of the year.

A waiter wiping down the bar, the old men complaining about the weather, a person stepping in for a cool drink and being instantly recognized by neighborhood buddies -- these are all found in Shayna’s figurative paintings. The artist completes each painting after doing pencil sketches on location.

Shayna is interested in the enduring tradition of family-run shops that characterize the neighborhoods in Seville -- shops where centuries-old tiles, intricate woodwork, and beautiful wrought iron demonstrate the pride and caring of the owners. These are places where customers are neighbors, and are often greeted warmly and waited on by the owner; where making a sale is often not as important as catching up on the neighborhood gossip. These shops and bars are truly community centers, but sadly they are slowly disappearing as the pressures of national and multinational chain merchants come to bear, and as younger generations demand quicker service, cheaper products, and longer shopping hours. In fact, several of the locales Shayna has sketched for her work have since closed their doors forever; the City of Seville has taken special note of Shayna’s painting series as historical documentation of a way of life that is disappearing and will not return.