Between the Lines (Letters from WWII) Reception

Between the Lines (Letters from WWII)

by Marilyn Dale 

October 12 - November 13, 2026

Reception: Sunday, November 8, 1 to 3 p.m.; Artist Talk at 2 p.m.

This exhibition is part of the year-long Stall Tall for Freedom series that honors America's 250th anniversary.

The solo exhibition of evocative mixed-media paintings by Marilyn Dale is inspired by 500 letters written by her father serving as an Army infantryman in the Pacific Theater during World War II to her mother back home in the U.S. Dale incorporates many of the actual letters, personal photographs, devotionals, and wartime ephemera into the layered surfaces of her paintings. The work explores three emotional currents that run through the correspondence: longing—for love, family, and normalcy; faith—in survival, in God, and in the power of prayer; and camaraderie—the constant, unspoken bond between soldiers who endured the unendurable together. Between the Lines is both an act of remembrance and a quiet revelation of how love took shape not in grand gestures, but in daily words, faithfully written across oceans and silence.

Marilyn Dale is a contemporary painter whose original works have been juried into numerous galleries and exhibitions. She served as the president of the Naperville Art League and taught a variety of art classes at North Central College continuing education, the Naperville Art League, and DuPage Art League. She also led the Art & Environment Committee for her church for over 10 years as well as designed large scale works for several churches across the U.S.