Long Branch
FALL ART Show:
Dodie Petro Retrospective:
Figures, Sanctuaries and Light
September 3 - October 29
Long Branch Historic House & Farm
Boyce, VA - visitlongbranch.org
LONG BRANCH FALL ART Show
FREE OPENING RECEPTION September 3 from 5-7pm
all sales benefit Long Branch and Doctors Without Borders
Show runs Sept 3 - oct 29
Open Daily - Free Admission
Monday - Friday 10-4:00 | Saturday/Sunday 12-4:00
Long Branch Historic House & Farm
830 Long Branch Lane, Boyce, VA 22620 visitlongbranch.org
Dodie Petro Retrospective: Figures, Sanctuaries and Light is an exhibition bringing together the lifelong themes of Dodie Petro, a local Virginia artist. This show is a tribute to the depth and breadth of her works.
Proceeds from sales at this show will benefit Long Branch and Doctors Without Borders
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Dodie said about her creative process, “The paintings have an abstract basis. They begin with a gesture followed by a process whereby I give them my life and energy that they may ‘come to life’. It is this intention that makes the act of painting so audacious, impossible and endlessly fascinating.”
Dodie received her BFA (magna cum laude) from the University of South Florida and her MFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. She also studied with renowned artist Robert Brackman at the Art Students League. An accomplished and prolific artist, Dodie’s work has been shown in galleries and private collections all over the world. Over the course of her distinguished career, she had more than 50 individual art shows, and her work was included in the Art in Embassies program globally.
Dodie was a devoted and inspiring instructor of art for many years at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA, where she was also a member of the Art League and juried many member shows. She was a founding instructor at the North Light School of Art in Leesburg, VA. It was her biannual workshops at her beloved studio at Lodestone, outside of Waterford, Virginia, that brought her the greatest joy in her teaching career.
A true citizen of the world, Dodie traveled extensively and spoke four languages fluently. Most importantly, she had the inherent gift of making everything around her beautiful. As someone very close to her said, “She brought color to my world.”
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She passed away in November 2025 at the age of 91.
Dodie Petro (1934-2025) painted representational figures and interiors in oil in which the primary subject is clearly light. She did not paint the specific object or figure but the light that fell upon it as well as the atmosphere surrounding it. She focused on the light in which the figure lived and moved and had its own being.
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