Regional Artists Spotlight Series – Round Six

Every artist begins with a different point of inspiration, an unforgettable landscape, a meaningful memory, a carefully honed process, or a desire to see the familiar in a new way. The artists featured in this edition of our Regional Artist Spotlight Series demonstrate how diverse creative practices can be united by a shared commitment to thoughtful observation, craftsmanship, and personal expression.

Working across painting, photography, printmaking, mixed media, sculpture, and fiber, these artists reveal the richness of our region’s artistic community. Their work invites us to pause, reflect, and engage more deeply with the places, people, and ideas that shape our everyday lives.

Elizabeth Peak is a printmaker known for etchings in both black and white and color.

After many years of making and teaching etching, she continues to explore the possibilities of the process while expanding her studio practice through oil painting.

Her work reflects technical knowledge, sustained curiosity, and a lasting commitment to image-making.

Cayla Dalrymple works across painting, drawing, and photography, creating images shaped by memory and a strong sense of season.

Warm weather, blooming tiger lilies, and trips to the beach become touchstones for moments she wants to preserve.

Her work captures the emotional atmosphere of a particular time and place, transforming personal experience into vivid visual reflection.

Christina Horswell creates paintings guided by color, subject, and personal expression.

Her work reflects an individual way of seeing and contributes a distinct voice to Virginia’s creative community.

Through each composition, she invites viewers to enter her visual world and discover their own response.

Dean Taylor Drewyer paints oil landscapes both outdoors and in the studio, drawing his subjects from the rural Virginia countryside.

Creeks, woods, and open fields between Waterford and Lincoln provide an enduring territory for observation and exploration.

His work reflects a close familiarity with the land and a commitment to capturing the character of place.

Diane Williams creates hand-painted artwork on reclaimed bourbon barrel staves sourced from Virginia breweries.

By combining painting with the history, texture, and curved form of the wood, she transforms familiar materials into distinctive mixed media pieces.

Her work celebrates creative reuse while maintaining a strong connection to local craft and place.

James Dylan works across painting, photography, and music, bringing visual and sonic forms of expression into a multidisciplinary practice.

His work is shaped by observation, experimentation, and a curiosity about how different media can respond to the world around us.

Together, these approaches create a broad and personal creative language.

Janet Sifers photographs scenes and objects that catch her attention, from places near her Virginia home to discoveries made while traveling.

Drawn to color, texture, and the diversity of the everyday world, she uses photography as a way to pause and look more carefully.

Her images invite viewers to slow down, reconnect, and recognize beauty that might otherwise pass unnoticed.

Williamsburg painter Linda Dessaint creates work shaped by an ongoing commitment to studio practice and personal artistic exploration.

Through color, composition, and careful attention to the painted surface, she develops images that reflect her individual creative voice.

Her work adds to the richness and variety of the region’s visual arts community.

Linda Landreth Phelps began painting at age 70, first exploring watercolor before moving to acrylics.

Inspired by nature and animals, she seeks out moments of beauty, wonder, and gratitude—from swans and sunsets to peaceful pastoral scenes.

Her greatest pleasure comes from watching an image take shape and then sharing that sense of joy with others.

Lindsay Siemers specializes in expressionist realism, working in charcoal, graphite, oils, watercolor, and acrylic.

Her subjects include faith, divine providence, biblical narratives, horses, women, animals, and architecture, interpreted through a contemporary lens.

By combining classical themes with modern technique, she creates spaces for emotional resonance and spiritual reflection.

Marharyta Pendiur is a Ukrainian artist based in Williamsburg who works in oil, watercolor, and graphic art.

Her landscape paintings explore nature through shifting relationships of color, light, and atmosphere.

Through these elements, she captures both the physical character of a place and the feeling it leaves behind.

Melissa Tebbenhoff creates living mixed media artworks that bring together reclaimed wood, handcraft, and homegrown plants.

Her carved acacia mushroom, crowned with succulents, transforms natural and reused materials into a sculptural object for the home or garden.

Made with intention, her work invites viewers to pause, feel grounded, and reconnect with the living world.

Reni Gower works in painting, collage, mixed media, and papercutting, drawing from traditional patterns, cultural symbols, mathematics, and sacred geometry.

By fusing material with process and pattern with intention, she creates intricate geometric compositions rooted in both structure and universality.

Her work uses abstraction to offer viewers a richly meditative visual respite.

Timothy Yeaw creates peaceful paintings as a response to a culture often marked by conflict and distraction.

His work asks viewers to return their attention to beauty—not through nostalgia or sentimentality, but with renewed and forward-looking eyes.

In doing so, he considers art a space for reflection, possibility, and a deeper form of peace.