NORTH ADAMS, Mass.— For the first time in its history, the Eclipse Mill Gallery is presenting an online-only exhibition featuring six artists working with diverse mediums.

Artists Dawn Nelson, Linda O'Brien, Opie O'Brien, Diane Sawyer, Sarah Sutro, and Betty Vera are featured in Impromptu that not only reflects the artists' impulse to show their work together, but also their individual responses to materials and techniques, modes of artistic expression, and the challenges of making art while coping with dramatic, unpredictable events amid a rapidly expanding global pandemic and widespread social unrest.

Pursuing new directions in her large abstract paintings, Dawn Nelson is presenting works that are embedded with a sense of hope emerging from darkness. Sarah Sutro's intimate acrylic paintings on canvas focus on human encounters she describes as "connections and confrontations between cultures." 

Linda O'Brien's small-format paintings in oil and cold wax are a result of her impromptu decision to depart from her usual 3-D work and use new materials to explore themes of home and memory. 

Diane Sawyer's luminous abstract works in oil and cold wax reference moments in the trajectory of the pandemic. Opie O'Brien sees his expressive doll creations as "impromptu extensions" of his imagination. Betty Vera's spontaneous, offbeat snapshots are the source material for her large, meticulously rendered Jacquard tapestries.

Impromptu is viewable online.