Plastic faces smile and plastic flowers bloom in Heather Greenes series of multimedia assemblages commentating on the prevalence of single-use, permanent plastics. Greenes work is featured in the March show in River Arts’ River Room in Damariscotta. (Sarah Masters photo)
Two dazzling, playful shows are brightening Damariscotta’s River Art, at 36 Elm St. in Damariscotta. Ninety-eight Maine artists show their works celebrating “Light” in a show juried by Chris Augusta, of Waldoboro. The show runs through Saturday, April 4 in the main gallery.
“Light” harbingers spring, open to literal interpretation or metaphorical light, or both.
Diana Mullins’ “Dent de Lion” mixed media is an ode to little balls of sunshine, dandelion flowers. Watercolor images follow the bloom through its stages from bud to half-blown puff underneath Mullins’ poetic text.
“If I pick and hold a flower, close my eyes and make a wish, my breath boosts singular journeys. Fair sailing, far landings!” wrote Mullins.
Bernadette de Cesares multimedia piece Mad Hatter Lighthouse is a wonderland of imagery, one of the interpretations of Light exhibited in the current show at River Arts in Damariscotta. (Sarah Masters photo)
In “Dawn’s Early Light,” by Penny Ross, a 10-point buck stands tall surveying his domain as a bold sunrise light casts strong shadows against his form.
The sun is also rising in Denise Gordon’s “Fight Light.” Blue turns yellow as red begins to glow from the horizon. The sun sets in Brooke Pacy’s oil painting “Mudflats in Evening Shine,” warm and cool yellows colliding as they fade back down to blue.
Light cannot exist with dark, and so a pitch black night surrounds a lighthouse, its internal illumination the only thing discernible in the night. “Beacon,” by John Otterbein, is utterly unlike his other work, which is generally known for silly scenes and puns set in warm, near pastel colors.
“Mad Hatter Lighthouse” is plenty silly and wild, as the famous rabbit wears an entire building on his head in Bernadette de Cesare’s multimedia piece.
The sun starts to rise again in Sally Loughridge’s “Dawn Seasmoke,” a gauzy shoulder season view. Autumn’s particular glow illuminates a pagan figure in Ariana Elowen’s soft focus photograph “Witch’s Dream.”
And so it goes through more than 100 works of art: the sun comes up, sends its rays across the world, and sets again. Scenes from throughout the year, but mostly the longer days, have been captured and shared. There are some reminders of winter. Mary Winkes’ “Ice on the Damariscotta River” is particularly chilly.
River Arts also features an annex gallery, the River Room. In January, February, and March, the gallery invited their volunteers to share their own artwork in the River Room.
Chris Lawrence, Lee Liggett, Karen Nadeau, and Heather Greene present “A Conversation in Color.” The four very different styles are each bold and bright, strong contrasts without clashing between them.
Mary Sue Weeks captured a mornings red light in Sailors Take Warning while Gerd Koehler harnesses the sun itself in Helio, two artworks in a collection of over 100 works celebrating Light in a show running through Saturday, April 4 at River Arts in Damariscotta. (Sarah Masters photo)
Lawrence captures landscape scenes in vibrant acrylic and oil paints. Waves wash against the shore in “Schoodic Mood,” a rocky path glows between the trees in “Shore Path,” “Jordan Pond” reflects the mountains in a snow-covered scene. Lawrence’s exhibition plays with contrast, positioning the snow-cover pier in “A Cold Morning” next to the sun glowing over a verdant coast in “Hockomock Shadows.”
Liggett’s abstract paintings celebrate shapes and colors in a manner reminiscent of the neon pop art of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The shock of a “Yellow Brick Road” meanders through a dark wood and around an open field.
Amorphous blobs of periwinkle, orange, and vermillion each feature a different marking technique, swirls and hashes, geometric themes and mazes, and all float into and amongst each other in “Patterns of Thought.”
Nadeau’s paintings are colorful abstract Rorschach tests. Reds, oranges, greens, and yellows reflect each other in near mirror image diptychs. Colors drip and spill down the canvas in blooming riots akin to their name inspirations, “Flower Garden” and “Spring Irises.”
Greene’s cheerful colors and faces make a serious commentary on the prevalence of single use plastic, trash reassembled into art. Goofy characters make “Forever Friends,” bottle caps become blooms in “Forever Flowers,” Kuerig cups are daisy disks and petals, plastic straws the grass in “Kuerig Bouquet.”
“A Conversation in Color” well compliments “Light” despite their seemingly different themes. Warm colors and emotions overflow at River Arts gallery this month.
“Light” runs through Saturday, April 4 in the main gallery of River Arts, at 36 Elm St. in Damariscotta. “A Conversation in Color” closes on Saturday, March 28. River Arts is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
For more information about River Arts, call 563-6868, go to riverartsme.org, or find the gallery on Facebook and Instagram.
