CALDBECK

Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland opened its new exhibitions May 17, with a First Friday artists’ reception from 5 to 7 p.m. June 6. Featuring works by Elizabeth Awalt, Janice Kasper, Todd Watts and Susan Williams, the gallery presents a vivid and varied meditation on the natural world, interior landscapes and the porous boundary between real and imagined spaces.

In “Natural Selections,” Elizabeth Awalt layers, scrapes and pours oil paint into lush, immersive canvases that shimmer with movement. Awalt draws on decades of painting both en plein air and underwater, attuning herself to how color and form shift in water and light. Her paintings unfold like ecosystems, evoking beauty and chaos in equal measure. In her words, these works “develop their own ecologies,” reflecting both the vitality and vulnerability of the natural world. The resulting compositions invite viewers to reflect on their own relationships to land, water and the sensory world.

Also on view is “Out There,” a three-person show featuring Janice Kasper, Todd Watts and Susan Williams, each of whom responds to nature from a distinct personal and visual language. Kasper’s expressive oil paintings reveal her deep reverence for trees — both living and dead — as metaphors for life’s complexity. Her work is rooted in place, informed by her New England heritage and Norse ancestry, yet it speaks to a universal awareness of ecological interdependence. Whether painting white pines watched over by eagles or the quiet dignity of a fallen tree, Kasper underscores the subtle drama of growth, rest and renewal.

Todd Watts offers a different kind of engagement with nature and time through large-scale photographs that resist narrative and defy easy categorization. Rather than documenting moments, Watts creates visual events — images that feel like conversations in progress. His work, philosophical and richly layered, challenges viewers to consider how photographs can move beyond memory to become part of our evolving experience. “My pictures do not capture moments,” he writes. “They are photographs, but they do not depict particular events.” His evocative titles, such as “You Know, Tell the Others,” suggest open-ended stories that invite contemplation and response.

Susan Williams’ dreamlike oil paintings on yupo and acetate navigate a middle ground between external landscapes and interior states. Drawn from imagination and memory rather than direct observation, her works — like “Where the Birds Feed” and “Ebb Tide” — are recognizably natural, yet quietly surreal. Rocks, trees and water appear familiar, but nothing is quite fixed. Williams paints from a liminal space, where the real and imagined overlap and merge. Her brushwork simultaneously builds and unravels beauty, gesturing toward both awe and anxiety. These imagined environments hint at ecological and political unease while offering space for reflection, escape and transformation.

Together, these four artists offer a rich visual conversation about our evolving relationship with nature, perception and time. Whether rooted in direct observation, personal mythology or dreamlike abstraction, their work expands the landscape genre and deepens its relevance for our current moment. The exhibitions remain on view through June 22 at Caldbeck Gallery, 12 Elm Street in Rockland. Gallery hours are noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with Sunday visits by chance or appointment. For more information, visit www.caldbeck.com or email info@caldbeck.com.