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April 17, 2007
“San Diego painter Vicki Walsh has produced a body of work that is insightful and memorable,” Mark-Elliott Lugo pointed out. “The collective impact of these images is extraordinary.”
 DON KOHLBAUER / Union-Tribune
Vicki Walsh with her nephew, 17-year-old Greg Palmer, at the opening of an exhibition of her larger-than-life portraits presented by the San Diego Public Library. Greg's portrait hangs behind them.
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Working in what Lugo calls “the popular, often abused genre of realistic portraiture,” Walsh paints hyperrealistic, larger-than-life images in oil on birch panels.
More than 400 guests turned out for an after-hours reception and exhibition of her work at the library the other night.
Artists and members of the arts community in the crowd included Robin Bright, Elaine and Herbert Olds, K.D. Benton, Gail Roberts and Bill Fields, Ron Tatro, Ted Washington, Barbara Sexton, and Stephen Curry.
More were Jess Dominguez, Jeanne Dunn, Kendra Eskau, Steve Gibson, Misty Hawkins, Malcolm Jones, Clayton Llewellyn, Anne Mudge, Roy Porello, Mark Quint, and Pam Whidden.
The San Diego Public Library was represented by director Anna Tatar, Margaret Kazmer and Mike Bresnahan, Jay Hill, Katie Boskoff and Hodge Crabtree, Jean and Mike Stewart, and Lugo.
Some of the other patrons were Roberta and Anthony Imbimbo with son Marco, Joyce Corum, Lou Spisto, Christina Clifford, Margie and Bob Soares, Stephanie and Ken Goldman, Ellen and Jim Phelan, Alice and Doug Diamond, Lisa Kanemoto, Beverly Shenkman, Aimee Florence, Michele Recordon and Randy Franklin.
Members of the artist's family at the reception were her husband, Rich Walsh, her mother and stepfather, Billie and Vern Poehls, her two sisters and brothers-in-law, Paula and Jim Stinnett and Sheryl and Harvey White, and her niece and nephew, Michelle Stinnett and Greg Palmer. (The reception was catered by California Cuisine.)
Vern Poehls, Harvey White and Greg Palmer were among the men who sat for Walsh portraits in the show.
Other subjects who turned out to see themselves hanging on the walls of the gallery included Clara Kaser, Erin Casey Jones, Marc Rosete, Ron Rudolph, and Manny Lopez.