Four Lehigh Valley artists bring “Simply Still” Jan. 10 through Feb. 7 to the David E. Rodale and Rodale Family Galleries in The Baum School of Art. Allentown.

Still-life subjects are skillfully rendered in three mediums by Sandra Corpora and Lauren Kindle, each working in oils, Elena Shackleton, showing watercolors, and Jacqueline Meyerson, displaying pastels. An artists’ reception is 6 - 8 p.m. Jan. 17.

Corpora, with a background in figure drawing and plein air landscape oil painting, came to still-lifes somewhat later. “I always thought it was a boring thing to paint,” she says with a chuckle. “But I realized that it has its own joys, challenges and opportunities to create something that is especially beautiful and thoughtful.”

For Corpora, “the setup is the painting.” Careful thought goes into assembling what she calls “that little universe” she is about to paint.

A stickler for craft, Corpora’s “Star Blue Hydrangeas” (2018, oil on aluminum, 18 in. x 24 in.) is of a glass vase with hydrangea blossoms grouped with a glass Moravian star, green apple and peacock feather, painted in a style she describes as “painterly-realism.” The Bethlehem-based painter received a BFA in Painting from Kutztown University. Corpora teaches and holds workshops at her private studio.

Kindle, a painter and writer with studio space in downtown Easton, prefers working in oils. “It’s sexy. It’s luscious, oily, a sensual medium,” she says.

Although Kindle received a BA from Hampshire College in 2003 while studying Arts and Classics, the married mother of two children says, “It’s only recently that I have taken up art.”

Four years ago, she reunited with an artist friend and began taking lessons from him. This sparked an interest in her pursuing painting full-time. Kindle continued her education at the Baum School of Art and elsewhere, including a summer residency in Italy.

Kindle’s “Just Say Yes” (2018, oil on board, 9 in. x 12 in.) is a chiaroscuro painting of a glass of red wine on a dark wood tabletop with its shadow reclining on the wall behind it. Kindle enjoys painting family, neighbors, architecture and landscapes. She paints in a colorist style.

“Time in a Bottle” (2018, watercolor, 12 in. x 18 in.) by Shackleton brings on a feeling of nostalgia with vintage bottles and tins carefully arranged on a shelf. The artist photographed the scene inside an Easton antique shop, then captured it again with paint and paper in a realist-colorist work of art. “I enjoy both watercolor and oil equally,” Shackleton says.

Having worked in watercolor for years, Shackleton recently decided to return to oils. “Watercolor is running through the fields. Oil is work,” she says about revisiting the medium she began learning at age 10 when apprenticing with Patricia Wit at the Barn Studio of Art in New Jersey. Shackleton also studied at The Philadelphia Museum School, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Cape School of Art. She is president of Lehigh Art Alliance.

Meyerson, a Pastel Society of America Master Pastellist, creates complex scenes with collections of ordinary objects like rusty locks, then renders them in bold colors to capture drama from the inanimate items. With “Five Cobalt Bottles” (2018, pastel, 9 in. x 12 in.), Meyerson breathes life into a tight grouping of blue glassware.

The self-taught Macungie-based artist credits her daughter Laura, a Muhlenberg College art major, as well as an artist friend with inspiring her to explore the visual arts. “I kept coming back to pastel because it was the most friendly and the most forgiving,” says Meyerson. “There was an immediacy about it that I just loved.” She retired from an accounting job to concentrate on painting. Meyerson is a Baum School of Art faculty member.

After a series of exhibitions that featured installations, impressionist art, abstract works, and photography, Baum School of Art Gallery Director Kris Kotsch says, “We wanted to go back to a little bit of tradition.”

Since there had not been a still-life exhibition at Baum in awhile, Kotsch decided to showcase the different styles and mediums of the still-life by Corpora, Kindle, Shackleton and Meyerson.

The exhibit is sponsored by Janet and Malcolm Gross, and Stoudt Associates, LLC.

Baum School of Art, 510 Linden St., Allentown. Gallery hours: 9 a.m. - 9 p.m. Monday - Thursday, 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Closed Sunday. baumschool.org; 610-433-0032