Lorraine Skelskey-Chapin

Head of the Meadow Beach III, oil, 20 × 30 inches
Lorraine Skelskey-Chapin
Nationality	American
Occupation	Painter, art instructor
Title	Painter and art instructor, Southbury, Connecticut
Known for	Contemporary impressionist landscape, coastal, garden and still life painting in oil and acrylic, worked largely en plein air
Awards	Award of Merit, Lyme Art Association Paint the Town (2025)
Website	lschapin.com

Lorraine Skelskey-Chapin is an American contemporary impressionist painter and art instructor based in Southbury, Connecticut. She paints landscapes, coastal scenes, gardens, farm animals and still life in oil and acrylic, working outdoors from direct observation in the plein air tradition. The Connecticut Post has described her as "of Southbury, a contemporary impressionist, who brings life to her landscapes by modulating light, color and form."

Skelskey-Chapin is an Associate Artist of the Lyme Art Association in Old Lyme, Connecticut, a rank the association reserves for members of at least two years' standing who have had work accepted into three separate juried exhibitions. In 2025 she received one of three Awards of Merit at the association's Paint the Town, a one-day plein air competition juried that year by the painter Eileen Eder. Her paintings have been accepted into at least seven Lyme Art Association juried exhibitions, and she has shown regularly in western Connecticut since the early 2010s.

Her work is carried by The Finer Line Gallery in Mystic, Studio Hill in Woodbury and The Barn Gallery in New Fairfield. She has also exhibited with the PS Gallery in Litchfield and with the Fine Line Art Gallery cooperative in Woodbury, where she sat on the board of directors and was the featured artist at the gallery's twenty-fifth anniversary exhibition in 2018. Her work has appeared at the Mark Twain Library Art Show in Redding and at a benefit auction for the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme. She teaches weekly painting classes in Southbury and belongs to the Lyme Art Association, the Society of Creative Arts of Newtown and the Connecticut Plein Air Painters Society.

Early life and education

Skelskey-Chapin graduated from the University of Connecticut with a bachelor's degree in graphic design and holds an associate's degree in fine art. She has painted for more than thirty-five years and has worked as a self-employed commissioned artist since the late 1980s.

Career

Skelskey-Chapin's documented exhibition record begins in western Connecticut. In March 2012 she was named among eighteen featured artists in Art Forms, the third annual gallery viewing organized as a benefit for the annual campaign of the Palace Theater in Waterbury; the exhibition premiered at the Fine Line Art Gallery in Woodbury on April 28, 2012. The announcement misspelled her forename as "Lorrain."

The Fine Line Art Gallery was a cooperative of fifteen artists in Woodbury who shared responsibility for the gallery's operation and mounted several shows a year. By 2014 Skelskey-Chapin sat on its board of directors, was an exhibiting artist at the PS Gallery in Litchfield and the Barn Gallery in New Fairfield, painted in oil and acrylic in a variety of sizes, and, in the words of a notice for that year's A Fall Gathering of Artists in Litchfield, "resides and teaches art in Southbury." The Waterbury artist Mally DeSomma founded that show in 2000 and ran it in conjunction with the Fine Line gallery; Skelskey-Chapin has acted as its promoter and co-director. She returned for its nineteenth edition, held over the Columbus Day weekend of October 5 to 8, 2018 at the Litchfield firehouse.

An exhibition of her work ran at the Walker Road Vineyard in Woodbury from August 29 to September 27, 2015. She returned to the same venue in 2018 for a two-person Spring Show with DeSomma, which ran from May 18 to June 15.

The 2018 season was her most visible at the Woodbury cooperative. On September 30 she was among eight artists who set up easels on the gallery lawn for its annual Paint Out, painting outdoors in view of the public. That November she was the featured artist of Festival in Color, the gallery's twenty-fifth anniversary exhibition, held from November 9 to 11 with an artists' reception on November 10; her oil Kent Falls carried the announcement for the show. She was featured again at the cooperative's Spring Show from May 3 to 5, 2019, alongside the Woodbury painter Nadine Newell. The portfolio she kept at the gallery included City Slickers II, Golden Marsh, Silver Marsh, Crushing Wave, Wicked Dunes III, The Most Beautiful Day and Truro Flower Cottages.

Mussel Mingle, oil, 8 × 10 inches

Her exhibiting has since centered on the Connecticut shoreline. Work by Skelskey-Chapin has appeared in Lyme Art Association juried exhibitions from at least 2021, including both editions of Expanding Visions, First Impressions in 2024 and 2026, Ship to Shore in 2024 and 2026, and Deck the Walls in 2025. In 2025 her oil Flower Cottages, Truro was listed in the fifty-third annual Mark Twain Library Art Show in Redding.

She has also contributed to charitable art sales. In September 2022 she donated the oil Pretty and Pink to the fortieth annual benefit auction of the Florence Griswold Museum, where it sold for $320. Beyond easel painting, she painted a mural for the Burlington Veterinary Hospital in Connecticut. Her published catalogue runs to more than 110 works, grouped by medium and by geography. Studio Hill lists smaller paintings by her at $295, among them Wicked Pumpkin, New England Treasure and Party Time.

Style and subjects

Skelskey-Chapin works in the idiom of contemporary impressionism. Her method is plein air painting: pictures begun and finished outdoors, in front of the subject. The Lyme Art Association's Paint the Town, in which she was recognized in 2025, sets that discipline as a rule, requiring that "all paintings must be started and completed on the day of the competition within the borders of Old Lyme, Lyme, and East Lyme."

She paints in both oil and acrylic and in a range of sizes. On her website she writes that "en plein air you are immersed in the excitement and anticipation of exploration of light, form, space, and color interpreted through paint," and that a subject "can be anything from a river, ocean, scenic woodlands, or an everyday scene." She states her aim as "to reflect the spirituality and beauty found in nature, capturing the light on the dunes, the sparkle on the ocean, and colors that burst in the Spring." She paints alone and with other artists outdoors whenever possible, and opens her gallery biography with a line attributed to Vincent van Gogh: "If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere."

Provincetown Dunes III, oil, 24 × 24 inches

Four groups of subjects recur across her catalogue. The first is Cape Cod, and in particular the Outer Cape, where she has painted Head of the Meadow Beach in Truro, Race Point and Herring Cove in Provincetown, the Province Lands dunes and Lighthouse Beach at Chatham.

Kent Falls, oil, 11 × 14 inches

The second is Connecticut, both the shoreline and the inland hills. Kent Falls, the subject of the oil used to announce the 2018 anniversary exhibition, descends roughly 250 feet through Kent Falls State Park toward the Housatonic River. On the coast she has painted at Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison, the state's largest shoreline park, and at Meigs Point, the rocky eastern end of that park; her painting Meig's Point I is catalogued to Madison.

Poppies, oil, 16 × 20 inches

The third and fourth groups are closer to home. Gardens and florals appear throughout the catalogue, with poppies, peonies, hosta and lilies among the recurring motifs, several of which have carried into her juried entries, including Poppies and Peonies at the Lyme Art Association. She also paints farm animals and still life, the latter running to shellfish and seasonal produce, as in Seashells, Mussel Mingle and Pumpkin Surprise II. A 2019 exhibition notice summarized the range: "her paintings of the landscape, still life, gardens, and animals reflect her ability to communicate the energy and unique atmosphere of a scene."

Exhibitions

Year	Exhibition	Venue and dates	Notes
2012	Art Forms, third annual gallery viewing	Fine Line Art Gallery, Woodbury, April 28, 2012	One of eighteen featured artists; Palace Theater benefit
2014	A Fall Gathering of Artists, 14th annual	Litchfield, October 10 to 13, 2014	More than 35 Connecticut artists
2015	Exhibition of work by Skelskey-Chapin	Walker Road Vineyard, Woodbury, August 29 to September 27, 2015	Listed in the Voices News arts calendar
2018	Spring Show with Mally DeSomma	Walker Road Vineyard Gallery, Woodbury, May 18 to June 15, 2018	Two-person show
2018	Annual Paint Out	Fine Line Art Gallery, Woodbury, September 30, 2018	Painted en plein air with seven other artists
2018	A Fall Gathering of Artists, 19th annual	Litchfield, October 5 to 8, 2018	Returning exhibitor
2018	Festival in Color, 25th anniversary	Fine Line Art Gallery, Woodbury, November 9 to 11, 2018	Featured artist; Kent Falls used as the announcement image
2019	Annual Spring Show	Fine Line Art Gallery, Woodbury, May 3 to 5, 2019	Featured artist, with Nadine Newell
2022	40th Annual Benefit Auction	Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, September 11 to 24, 2022	Donated Pretty and Pink
2024	First Impressions	Lyme Art Association, Old Lyme	Sea Breeze, Seashells
2024	Ship to Shore	Lyme Art Association, Old Lyme	Lighthouse Beach, Chatham
2025	Paint the Town	Lyme Art Association, Old Lyme	Award of Merit; juror Eileen Eder
2025	Deck the Walls	Lyme Art Association, Old Lyme	Pumpkin Surprise II
2025	53rd Annual Mark Twain Library Art Show	Redding	Flower Cottages, Truro
2026	First Impressions	Lyme Art Association, Old Lyme	Cape Cod Dunes, Peonies
2026	Ship to Shore	Lyme Art Association, Old Lyme	Mussel Mingle
undated	Expanding Visions	Lyme Art Association, Old Lyme	Provincetown Dunes III; listing undated, first archived March 2021
undated	Expanding Visions (second edition)	Lyme Art Association, Old Lyme	Color My World, Poppies

Awards and recognition

In 2025 Skelskey-Chapin received an Award of Merit at Paint the Town, the Lyme Art Association's annual plein air competition, which requires every entry to be started and completed on the day of the competition within the borders of Old Lyme, Lyme and East Lyme, and judges and shows the finished paintings the same evening. The 2025 edition was juried by Eileen Eder and named three Awards of Merit, to Howard Park, Maura Cochran and Skelskey-Chapin, alongside first, second and third place and two People's Choice awards.

Her standing as an Associate Artist of the Lyme Art Association is an earned rank rather than a purchased membership tier. The association reserves it for artists who have been individual members in good standing for two full years and have had three works accepted into its juried exhibitions; Associate Artists may then enter every association exhibition except the Elected Artist Show. She appears in the association's public roster of Associate Artists.

She was also selected as featured artist for the Fine Line Art Gallery's twenty-fifth anniversary exhibition in 2018, where her oil Kent Falls carried the announcement, and again for the cooperative's 2019 Spring Show.

Teaching

Skelskey-Chapin teaches painting in Southbury, Connecticut, a role local press noted as early as 2014. Her published schedule sets classes once a week in Southbury, on Wednesday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon. Instruction covers "the fundamentals of color mixing, basic brush techniques, paint handling and application," together with painting light and shadow to create volume and depth, composition, and the development of individual style and special effects.

Memberships

Skelskey-Chapin belongs to three Connecticut arts organizations: the Lyme Art Association, the Society of Creative Arts of Newtown and the Connecticut Plein Air Painters Society.

The Society of Creative Arts of Newtown, known as SCAN, is a nonprofit artists' league in Newtown whose stated purpose is "providing education, encouragement and experience in the visual arts," and which runs monthly demonstrations, workshops, open studio sessions and member shows.

The Connecticut Plein Air Painters Society is a nonprofit founded in 1995 whose members gather regularly for paint outs across the state, and which by 2021 had grown to more than 100 members. That June, Skelskey-Chapin was one of twelve society members who spent a day painting at a historic Main Street property in Newtown.

See also

• En plein air
• Lyme Art Association
• Florence Griswold Museum

External links

• Official website
• Instruction and art classes
• Associate Artists listing, Lyme Art Association
• Artist page, The Finer Line Gallery, Mystic, Connecticut
• Artist page, Studio Hill, Woodbury, Connecticut