Gary Fournier | President

Gary’s artistic journey began in High School where he excelled in oils, watercolor and the potter’s wheel. College art was interrupted by Vietnam and 5 years of active duty Naval service, including 2 years of shore duty, 2 years in Vietnam and 1 additional year of active naval reserves. After Vietnam, he married, started a family, went to college, and began a very demanding 40+ year career in the environmental engineering industry working for several global engineering companies.

Gary’s art provides an opportunity to express himself. After many years in all levels of management in the business world, being able to express himself offers a relief from the confines of organizational structure and peer pressure. Landscape, winter scenes, animals, boats, lakes & rivers, seascapes, still life and architecture are his typical subjects. Gary prefers impressionism and his own style. Gary studied art while attending Empire State College, SUNY at Plattsburgh NY where his focus was art history, drawing and watercolor. Gary’s art is motivated by a love of nature, color and composition and the creativity that comes from working with paint and canvas.

Gary lives in East Windsor, NJ with his wife Geri. They just celebrated their 50th anniversary. They have two grown sons and three grandchildren. His studio is at the Art Station in Hightstown, NJ. Gary is a member of 8 art organizations, has exhibited in several venues including several juried exhibits in NJ and in New Hope, PA. He has soloed in New Hope, Terhune Orchards winery , NJ and currently has a solo online exhibit with the Red Bluff Art Gallery, Sacramento CA.

Louise Max | Education

Louise Max is a mixed media artist who finds her inspiration in nature and the mystical.

Max has been a professional artist for twenty years, beginning her career by operating her own graphic design company and then moving on to illustration and creating images for books, greeting cards, and household decor.

She illustrated two books in collaboration with famous author Ray Bradbury and her work also appeared in two other published books. She also designed a complete line of outdoor garden products, which included wall art, flags and a birdbath.

Max has taught art classes in pastel, mandalas and design, with students ranging from teens to seniors. Her art has been acquired by private collectors as well.

She enjoys creating art in various mediums - watercolor, mixed media, and pastels.

Laura Nicholson | Vice President

Laura Nicholson is primarily a plein-air painter who enjoys the challenges and spontaneity of painting outdoors and the camaraderie of the River Rats plein-air group. As a life-long resident of the Delaware Valley, retired geologist, and avid nature lover, she is inspired by the beauty of the local landscapes and river towns.  Largely self-taught, she frequently works in oil pastel and watercolor and feels that her work is rapidly evolving. In addition to painting, she has self-published a book of haiku with accompanying nature-inspired drawings. Her work has been exhibited and sold at the annual Juried Art Show at Phillips Mill, Tinicum Arts Festival, Artsbridge Members’ Exhibition and other local venues.

Laura joined Artsbridge in 2013 and currently serves as Vice President on the Artsbridge Board of Directors.

A resident of Titusville, you can often find her biking the towpath on either side of the river.

Sue Ann Rainey | Newsletter

Sue Ann Rainey is a lifelong artist from Carversville, Pa. who now lives on a farm in Tinicum. She has a small studio and expands outside in Bucks and Hunterdon Counties and beyond finding historic buildings, farms, and landscapes and captures them in photography and plein-air watercolors. She also creates dimensional art in various materials as these materials spark her interest and she experiments with them.

She has exhibited in many solo, group and juried exhibits and has captured several awards in Photography at the Tinicum Arts Festival,  Doylestown Art League and Artsbridge members exhibits. Her work has been accepted into the Phillips’ Mill Photographic Exhibition and Ellarslie -- The Trenton City Museum among local prestigious art exhibitions. She is a co-op artist exhibiting with The Upstairs Gallery online gallery.

She studied graphic design and photography at Tyler School of Art and worked as a graphic designer and photographer before retiring to be a pastry chef and artist. 

Kyle Wille | Secretary and Membership

With a background teaching Elementary Education and a degree in Art, Kyle has merged these two avid interests since teaching in the South Brunswick School District. As Co-Founder and Director of Pre-K/ Kindergarten program, Creative Connections (founded 2014), the community was gathered to explore and share interests in arts of various types with young students including visual, musical, dramatic play, and literature; along with exploring science. Kyle continued teaching children in local schools and after school programs, has carried a freelance art business since 2003, worked as Artist Outreach & Program Coordinator at Hopewell Valley Art Council, and more recently, as an Art Curator & Marketer in Princeton. “I have a love for beauty; the outdoors, being active, gardening, reading, traveling, painting, and photography along with a passion for celebrating the talents in others. Most of all I love sharing these interests with my family, including my husband and four children, and friends.”

Andrea “Dre” Grigoropol

Andrea “Dre” Grigoropol is an artist and designer. Drawn to art and deeply enthusiastic about creating and sharing art, she has been habitually painting throughout her life. Her artworks are made in different mediums including traditional painting, digital painting, and printmaking. Please keep up with her with the website Dretime.net and find her on instagram.com/Dretime.

Jean Joslin| Treasurer

Jean Joslin has worked with most art materials, but her focus now is on oil painting. She has painted with the River Rats for many years and enjoys painting the beautiful scenes along the Delaware as well as the company of other painters. She is also an Art Therapist, although retired, worked for many years as an art therapist in a women’s trauma program. She has used her love for art as a means to help and inspire others, and is in awe of the power art-making has as a means for healing and creating connection to self and others.

She has exhibited and sold her work in various shows and galleries in the local area and was a founding member of the Lawrenceville Artist Network. She enjoys taking art classes and workshops and has studied at the Art Students League and The School of Visual Arts in New York City. Currently she is enrolled in the drawing/painting program at Bucks County Classical Arts in New Hope, Pa., where she is inspired to improve her skills through figurative drawing and still life oil painting. She lives in Lawrenceville, NJ with her husband, 3 aging cats, her faithful dog Penny and a handful of chickens.

Roy Reinard

Roy Reinard is a plein-air and studio landscape painter living and working in New Hope, Pa. The beauty that surrounds Bucks County and the neighboring New Jersey area has given Roy a keen appreciation of the living art that surrounds all of us. The beauty of Bucks County is his primary source of inspiration and his painting locations are mostly within a few miles of New Hope. Roy looks for everyday locations people often fail to see in their daily travels. His art is characterized by the lights and darks in nature and he looks to capture the overall time and mood of the scene.

Roy has exhibited his artwork in more than 100 exhibitions, including 50 juried shows such as the Phillips’ Mill Juried Art Show, Ellarslie Open, Stover Mill, Artsbridge, New Hope Arts, and the Artists of Yardley. His work has both won awards, and sold, and he has been featured in solo shows.

Roy’s work is in many private and public collections, He is a Board Member of Artsbridge and is a member of New Hope Arts, Artists of Yardley and the Ellarslie Museum.

Bob Barish | River Rats Chair

I have always been interested in art, with my earliest recollections watching and participating with the Jon Gnagy TV show, “Learn to Draw”, in the mid 1950’s. That early interest has had a profound influence on my life.  Upon graduation from The University of The Arts, Philadelphia, PA, and a corporate career as Art and Design Director for the Pharmaceutical Industry I remain a committed artist.

I am now a full time oil painter specializing in plein air scenes of the Delaware Valley and the rich history of the area. Plein air painting offers me an immersion into the sights, sounds and feelings of the subject.  My primary goal is to convey the immediacy of ‘being there’ with a glimpse of an instant image experiencing what I have seen and portraying in paint.

As a board member of Artsbridge, the art association located in Stockton, NJ, I have also served as Coordinator for the River Rats Plein Air Painting Group for the past 16 years scheduling weekly paint-outs at various locations in the Delaware Valley river towns and surrounding countryside.

Thierry Poirot

I was born in Afghanistan to an American mother and a French father posted there for the French government to start with his colleagues the first Medical School in Afghanistan. After Dad’s afghan assignment, the family went to Tunisia where my father was the WHO (World Health Organization) Medical Officer I spent most of my childhood between France with my grandparents and Tunisia with my parents. These early travels gave me an appreciation for different cultures and art forms.

My parents settled back in France when I was 9. During secondary school I attended for several years, a formal drawing course led by Mr. Sabatier, a gentleman passionate with art who was affectionately referred to by his students as “Picasso”. Chain smoking “Gitane” cigarettes, he trained his students on perspective, the use of pencil and Canson paper.

After Medical School, I trained as an ophthalmologist and was practicing my specialty in a University Hospital in France, and illustrating different books and publications. My career eventually brought me in Singapore where I stayed with my family for over 10 years.

This was a decisive moment for my artistic endeavors: I was very lucky to meet and befriend a local internationally known artist, Mr. Siew Hock Meng, who invited me to join a group of professional and amateur painters he mentored. This was a fantastic opportunity to meet talented local artists such as Teng Nee Cheong, Toh Kar Ann, Boon Wang Lee, Shao Hua Fan, many of them becoming well known over the years.

During my travels in Asia, I went frequently to Japan where I discovered Gyotaku, the ancient custom of rubbing rice paper or fabric on a fish coated with ink. I was impressed by exhibitions I attended in Kyoto and Tokyo, and decided I would some day try my hand at Gyotaku that became a significant portion of my portfolio.

My family and I came back to the US in late 2002. In 2016, after 35 years in the pharmaceutical industry and various companies, I decided to dedicate my time to art. I paint mostly in oils, but also in pastels, charcoal, and generally travel with my watercolor box and my camera. I enjoy painting a variety of subjects, ranging from still life to portrait.