Jeffery Becton: New Work; Joseph Keiffer: Places Remembered; and Linda Packard: Fruitful Wanderings at Courthouse Gallery Fine Art

Courthouse Gallery Fine Art is pleased to present three solo shows: Jeffery Becton: New Work; Joseph Keiffer: Places Remembered; and Linda Packard: Fruitful Wanderings. There will be an artist’s reception on Wednesday, August 15 from 5–7pm. The shows will run from Augsut 15 through September 15. The event is free and open to the public.

Jeffery Becton (b. 1947) creates provocative photo-based digital montages based on the tidal reaches and atmospheric weather near his Deer Isle home. A pioneer in the field of fine-art photography, Becton began experimenting with the layering of visual information in the early 1990s using the new digital tools. His surreal scenarios are evocative of that in-between milieu one inhabits when living by the sea. Bates College Museum of Art held a solo show of Becton’s large-scale monographs in 2016 that then traveled to the Daura Gallery at the University of Tennessee, the Vero Beach Museum of Art in Florida, and to Lynchburg College in Virgina. Becton’s work has been in numerous solo, group, and juried exhibitions, featured in national and international publications, and is included in many private and museum collections, including Bates College Museum of Art, Farnsworth Museum of Art, and Portland Museum of Art, among others.

Linda Packard: (b.1952) is an en plein air landscape painter, who recently transitioned to a totally process driven studio practice. The new abstract paintings in her first solo show at Courthouse Gallery have brought the sensuous physicality of her visceral landscapes to a new level. After receiving her BA in Studio Art from Smith College, Packard moved to Boston where she worded as librarian and a printmaker, and studied book arts. She eventually settled in Maine and opened a graphic design firm. In 2006, Packard returned to pursuing a fine art career. A one-week summer workshop with the late Boston painter, Jon Imber, in Stonington, Maine, marked the beginning of her love affair with the expressiveness of oil paint and en plein air painting. Packard spent five years working with Imber, who she still cites as one of her greatest influences. Packard was awarded a Heliker-LaHotan Foundation residency fellowship in 2015, and participated in a month-long residency this past fall at Weir Farm in Wilton, Connecticut. Packard lives in Bangor Maine, where she maintains a year-round studio.

Joseph Keiffer (b. 1952) is a realist painter who credits the artists of the Hudson River School for his inspiration, yet his sensibilities are completely modern. Keiffer takes the viewer from brilliant sunlight to twilight, from panoramic vista to cozy interior, and from plastic pots brimming with splashy annuals to towering stacks of tipsy tin cups. He studied at the New York Studio School and graduated from Brandeis University with degrees in philosophy and art history. Following a year at Sotheby’s “Works of Art” course, Keiffer was employed by Sotheby’s as a cataloguer and appraiser of paintings, and after six years there, and three years at Doyle Galleries, he became a private art dealer and president of a non-profit art foundation. In his thirties, Keiffer began painting full-time. His work is in numerous national and international collections. Keiffer, who lives in New York City, finds inspiration for his painting by spending time in Downeast Maine and the Catskills, NY

Courthouse Gallery is located at 6 Court Street in Ellsworth. For hours call (207) 667-6611, or visit www.courthousegallery.com