“Alan O’Neal and Loes van Riel: A Relationship with Art” will be on display Oct. 18 through Dec. 10 in the Babcock Fine Arts Center Gallery at Sweet Briar College. There will be an opening reception and gallery talk by the artists from 4:15 to 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18.

The exhibition title is a reference to O’Neal and van Riel’s partnership as a married couple and to their deep involvement in art. They met at McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville, when both had studios there.

Alan O'Neal's Marker II is acrylic on canvas.Today they work from their Charlottesville home, where “art talk, whether it be about our own work or art in general, is a staple,” van Riel said. “We both are highly independent in our work but support each other as much as possible.”

O’Neal’s acrylics on canvas incorporate geometrical forms – such as squares and triangles – with color and texture. “I am not interested in geometry per se,” he said. “What interests me about the forms are the layered cultural associations that are associated with them, for example the cruciform that [is used in] two pieces in this exhibition.”

O’Neal is a longtime Virginian and 1971 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University with an M.F.A. in painting and printmaking. He says he has learned not to try to explain his abstract work to viewers.

“It stifles their own creative participation with the art work,” he said.

In his artist statement he writes, “In my view art happens when there is a transformative interaction between people and articulated objects. To achieve this goal I focus on primal visual elements that facilitate bringing observer and observed together in the moment.”

O’Neal has exhibited his works in numerous shows around Virginia. In addition to his Master of Fine Arts from VCU, he also completed the Transpersonal Studies Master’s Program with a concentration in fine art at Atlantic University in Virginia Beach in 2001.

Rembrandt in Amsterdam No. 1 is a mixed-media collage by Loes van Riel.Van Riel, who moved to the United States from the Netherlands in 1966, has worked in mixed-media collages since 1999. She began her career more than a decade earlier, specializing in jewelry surface design and papermaking.

Her works on paper emphasize defined presentation. Luminous gold leaf often is mixed with wire, beads, crystals and other tiny jewels.

Van Riel’s theme for the Sweet Briar show, “Rembrandt in Amsterdam,” was inspired by the 400th anniversary of the artist’s birth in 2006.

“I grew up in the area of Amsterdam which was Rembrandt’s stomping grounds and was always intrigued and astonished by his work,” she said. “All of the Netherlands celebrated [the anniversary].

“For the occasion, the Amsterdam city archives scanned amazing amounts of original documents about his life onto their Web site. When I found these fascinating and visually gorgeous papers I was off and running.”

A longtime member of the McGuffey Art Association and the American Crafts Council, van Riel has exhibited her work in galleries from Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Boston to Italy. Her work also has been shown in craft shows, such as the Smithsonian, Philadelphia Museum and American Craft Council Shows.

Her work has been featured in Ornament and Niche magazines and “The Art of Jewelry Making” by Alan Revere.

Art gallery hours are 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Monday and Friday, and 1 to 9:30 p.m., Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. For information, please call (434) 381-6547 or (434) 381-6413.

– By Jennifer McManamay, SBC staff writer