Artwork
Portal
By Jaci Rice
Issue 3, Spring 2026 Cover Art
Jaci Rice
Impressionistic realist painter, Jaci Rice found a deep inspiration while visiting and living in the Rust Belt town of Weirton, WV. It was there, in the Ohio River Valley, where viewer’s stories and experiences were exhumed and honored alongside Rice’s honest, but beautifully gentle portrayals of the disappearing industrial landscapes. An Emerging Artist Fellowship in 2020 through the West Virginia Creative Network (previously the Tamarack Foundation for the Arts), gifted Rice the ability to connect the northern panhandle’s industrial heritage with the rest of the state and beyond – bringing more light to these places and their stories. She prefers to use acrylic paint and simple drawing materials on sturdy wood panels to convey these striking, but otherwise unnoticed, visages of industrial “wonderlands”.