Craig Masten
Craig Masten is an artist who considers oil painting his first love, but also enjoys watercolor as well as various other mediums, including printmaking, and pen and ink. He has studied at the Museum School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; the DeCordova Museum School in Lincoln, Massachusetts; and is involved in a variety of painting and figure/life art programs.
Since moving to Rhode Island in 2002, Mr. Masten has studied with a number of the area’s artists, including: Margaret Kelleher, Al Albrektson, Allen Johnson, Sam Rouslin, Richard Grosvenor, Anthony Tomaselli, Richard Harrington, Joan Boghossian, Elizabeth Zimmerman, Carol Fitzsimonds, Lisa Goddard, Carole Berren, and Gail Armstrong. Most especially he gives credit to the encouragement of Natalie Pfansteihl and the members of her plein air painting group. He has spent many pleasant hours in their company attempting to capture the memorable places of New England. Additionally, he acknowledges other artists – notably Eric Weingardt, Charles Reid, Richard Schmid, William Thon, and the late great Rhode Island watercolorist, David Aldridge -as significant influences on his development as a painter.
Mr. Masten is an award-winning artist member of the Rhode Island Watercolor Society, the Wickford Art Association, the South County Art Association, the Cape Cod Art Association, and the Mystic Arts Center in Connecticut, the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, and the Providence Art Club. He has shown his work in numerous juried shows and exhibitions at these organizations, as well as at the DeCordova Museum, the Warwick Art Museum, the Newport Art Museum, the Newport Art Guild, the Providence Athenaeum, and AS220. His work is regularly represented as an artist member of Spring Bull Gallery in Newport, Rhode Island, and Five Main Gallery in Wickford, Rhode Island. He shares a studio with his artist wife, Gail Armstrong, at the Deacon Taylor House of The Providence Art Club. Contact directly via website: craigmasten.com, or by telephone: 401-738-6984.