In Scenic Pursuit

Holly Berry, Marguerite Lawler, Molly Mains, and Wendy Newcomb

Online Exhibition

To purchase work in the show, click on an image, or on the artist’s icon on our Home or Artists pages.

Holly Berry grew up in Kennebunk, Maine, and received a BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design where she also studied printmaking and photography. Before moving back to Maine, she did graduate work toward an MFA in Studio Teaching at Boston University.  She now lives in Waldoboro.

Holly is known both for her award winning illustrations and her passion for relief printing.  She focuses primarily on wildlife and natural settings, creating dynamic, bold prints that engage the viewer immediately with their rich colors and imaginative play of patterns.  As she puts it:

“Making prints appeals to my love of creating things with my hands and my appreciation for craftsmanship. I immediately fell in love with the printmaking process as a way to create an image and continue to explore and experiment with technique and imagery.

“My favorite part of the process is cutting my designs from the block. Starting with outlines of the basic shapes, the journey of choices begins. To cut or not to cut! Having to simultaneously consider, analyze and address the negative and positive aspects of a design requires a deliberate and direct focus that I find meditative. Narrative and decorative stylized images appeal to me. I am attracted to the variety of lines, shapes, patterns and textures found in my immediate environment as well as those in primitive and folk art, created by others also inspired by the natural world. Birds, animals, fish, insects, plants and the planets all offer points of departure to interpret and integrate into my compositions. I find linoleum block printing the perfect medium to express and celebrate the graphic elements of the beautiful world in which we live.”

Marguerite Lawler’s education includes a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, and a MFA from the City University of New York.  In 2017 she received a Project Grant from the Maine Arts Commission to create a new body of work, which is ongoing.  Her focus has been the interior landscape and seascape of the coast and islands of Maine.  On location, Marguerite likes to observe, to gather information, to organize, and to develop the foundations of her paintings through small studies in oil and gouache. Her subjects are the wooded and watery environments of Maine; her focus is the effect of light on the landscape. What most interests Lawler as a painter is the studying of the contrast of shadows and the forms they create. She is not trying to paint the panoramic or infuse romantic sensibilities; rather, she seeks to capture the austerity of the moment.  In the studio, Lawler’s studies are translated into large oil paintings on panel. She relies on these studies, her visual memory, and her intuition to create representational pieces. Her visual experiences become the springboard for exploration and discovery, which evolves over time.

Molly Mains, artist and art educator, graduated from Colby College and later the University of Southern Maine and inspired middle school artists for over 36 years. In 2011 she received the honor of Maine Art Educator of the Year. Throughout her career, she has participated in numerous courses concentrating on printmaking, collage, painting, and book arts. Bridgton, Maine is her hometown. She says:

“The woods and fields were my playground growing up. The outdoors now nourishes my artwork. My childhood sense of wonder at natureʼs lines, textures, forms and colors remains with me and pervades all that I create.”

“My creative process is a progression of focusing-in and simplifying rather than a literal interpretation of nature. A subjective transformation then occurs with the give and take of gouge to block or roller to surface with color and texture interacting with one another. From there, accidents and discoveries occur that elicit spontaneous responses and unplanned outcomes.”

Wendy Newcomb is a representational painter whose primary media include oil, gouache and acrylic.  She has shown her work throughout Maine in numerous juried shows at University of Southern Maine Gorham, University of Southern Maine, Lewiston, University of New England, Boothbay Botanical Gardens and other gallery invitational shows. She received her B.F.A in painting at the University of NH in Durham, NH

Wendy Newcomb’s paintings represent a visual journal of her life in Maine. They reflect her love of nature and her participation in it. A recurring theme in her work is the way in which light falls upon objects and the landscape; how it defines and creates patterns and adds drama to a scene. She prefers early morning or late afternoon light for its golden hues and long shadows. The element of water is also particularly interesting to her with its constant motion, its transparencies and how it interacts with the land and sky.  Recreating her visual experience, she wants to give the viewer a sense of being in that moment with her.