‘CALIFLORA: All roads lead to Downeast’: Works on paper inspired by nature by four Bay Area artists at MOTHERS Gallery

MOTHERS Art & Antique Gallery will present its next exhibition, “CALIFLORA: All roads lead to Downeast,” featuring works on paper by Irene Imfeld, John Watson, Clare Olivares and Whitney Vosburgh. The show will open Sept. 1 from 4 to 6 p.m. and will remain on view until Sept. 21.

As MOTHERS strives to bring the world to Downeast and Downeast to the world, each year it plans an exhibition of artwork not typically seen in Maine. Last September, the gallery showcased an exhibition of 14 Japanese artists. This year, the annual “from away” exhibition will feature works on paper — watercolors, photographs and prints — inspired by the work of Georgia O’Keeffe and the natural beauty of Northern California. Interestingly, O’Keeffe had her first artistic breakthroughs in Maine and then moved West, where she had a number of Japanese-American artistic collaborators and friends.

“I started my art career in Maine before moving to California but have been drawn back to Maine each summer for many decades until I was able to finally move to Downeast and open the gallery,” said Whitney Vosburgh, curator of and participant in the exhibition. “This group of four artists have a long history of exhibiting together in the Bay Area, Japan — with the aforementioned 14 Japanese artists — and even at that wonderful oxymoron, the Las Vegas Cultural Center.”

Irene Imfeld has worked with textiles, handmade books and as a book designer. She attended numerous photography workshops and reviews and received two funded art residencies. Imfeld was a co-owner of PHOTO, a gallery in Oakland, from 2010 to 2015 and has been an active member of the Bay Area photo community for decades. Recently, she was on the PhotoAlliance board of directors (2015 to 2018), a member of the Bay Area Photographers Collective (2009 to 2013) and SFMOMA FotoForum (2008 to 2015). She was the curator of Touchstone, an exhibition of monochrome nature/landscape imagery in 2023 at Chung 24 Gallery, San Francisco.

John Watson aspires towards a simple, refined aesthetic through commitments within multiple visual disciplines, including fine art, photography, surface/textile design and graphic design. Interests include abstraction, rhythm, subtlety and simple beauty. From San Diego to San Francisco to Oakland, his work has evolved from pastel on paper drawings and cut-out figures, to hand-cut photo collages from single and multiple images. Similar methods of juxtaposition followed, using computers and digital printmaking to create contextual relationships not available in single-image photography. A variety of digital strategies are now used to transform photographs through alteration and abstraction of natural elements.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Clare Olivares’ art practice is contemplative, and her paintings charge the landscape with saturated color and symbolic imagery firmly rooted in the American tradition of spiritual landscape painting. Her paintings explore the poetics of place and the lyricism of nature. She has exhibited artwork nationally and internationally with art residencies awarded in Nepal, Cambodia, New Mexico and California.

Vosburgh is curator and co-owner of MOTHERS, an author and a fourth-generation artist. He lives with his wife Heather in Downeast Maine and the Bay Area in California. He has lived, studied, worked and exhibited around the world. His artwork is in public and private collections in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa. A BFA graduate from Parsons School of Design in New York City, he also studied at the International Center of Photography in Paris and New York, St. Martin’s School of Art in London, and the Art Students League in New York City. His Dutch great-grandfather, Floris Arntzenius, was a contemporary of van Gogh and a member of The Hague School. Recently, a street was named after him in the Netherlands, and Sotheby’s held a solo exhibition of his work in Amsterdam. Vosburgh’s grandmother was a successful still life and portrait painter. His mother is an actively collected painter of still lifes and landscapes in Connecticut and Maine.

On a related note, there will be a book launch and signing of the book “DISAPPEARING: The Working Waterfront of Downeast,” featuring the oil paintings of Valerie Aponik and Robin Rier, at the Jonesport Library from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Aug. 31. The library is located at 162 Main St., Jonesport. This event will be part of other end-of-summer celebrations activities — all free — that day at the library.

MOTHERS Art Gallery is at 19 Church Hill Circle, Columbia Falls. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday from May 1 to Sept. 21 but closed during the last week of each month, otherwise open by appointment by calling 510-504-1109. Learn more at www.mothersartgallery.com.