Downeast Dialogue: Coastal conversations in paint

MOTHERS Art Gallery will host a two-woman exhibition featuring local landscapes of Valerie Aponik and Robin Rier. The opening reception will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. Aug. 6.

Aponik and Rier have painted plain air side by side for many years but with different points of view and styles. Yet there is a visible common thread throughout their work. They had their first Dialogue exhibition at University of Maine at Machias in 2016 and are excited to continue their coastal conversation in paint at MOTHERS.

Aponik and Rier strive to capture the character, history and uniqueness of the places they paint in oil. They want to become part of the scene — at one with nature and all that surrounds them — by preserving their impressions and memories in paint. Aponik scans the scene all over and improvises by moving parts of the scenery around until it feels right. On the other hand, Rier finds and focuses on a scene that appeals to her as it is. And for both of them, painting outside is both a passion and an adventure.

Aponik and Rier are both New Englanders and moved to Downeast Maine in the late ‘70s. In time, they raised families, had careers and reinvented themselves in the second half of life as landscape painters. They love the shore, the rocks, the timelessness and beauty of the Bold Coast, with its old wharves and buildings, and rugged scenery.

Aponik gave up her nursing career in 2005 to paint full time, and exhibits her work with Roux and Cyr Gallery in Portland, Archipelago in Rockland and Blue Hill Bay Gallery in Blue Hill. Her work has received multiple awards, and is in the collections of the Northeast Harbor Medical Center, Downeast Institute, and the Beals Heritage Museum, as well as in private art collections across the US and abroad. 

Rier graduated 2002 from the University of Maine at Machias with a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts with a concentration on Visual Arts. Her work has exhibited at the Maine Farmland Trust Gallery in Belfast, Schooner Art Gallery in Milbridge, Mulholland Market Gallery in Lubec, John Edwards Wine Cellar Art Gallery in Ellsworth, and The Whitney Galleries in Wells.

MOTHERS Art Gallery is at 19 Church Hill Circle, Columbia Falls. Learn more at www.mothersartgallery.com.