Tom Curry exhibits ‘Surrounded by Water’

Beginning Aug. 6 and running through Sept. 8, Gleason Fine Art presents “Tom Curry: Surrounded by Water.” The Brooklin plein-air painter has been represented by Gleason Fine Art for over 15 years. This is Tom’s fourth solo show.

Tom Curry is intrigued with the idea of being surrounded by water. His first port of call after completing degrees at RISD and Yale was Hawaii. After tiring of Hawaii, Curry and his wife, the science and children’s book writer Kim Ridley, tried the opposite coast and something completely different — the tiny, picturesque Downeast village of Brooklin.

It’s hard to get away from the water in Brooklin. Country roads wind past green fields that are startlingly close to flocks of tiny islands. Jutting peninsulas, waterfalls and impossibly narrow bridges make for a dreamlike landscape. The lush green is juxtaposed by the intense blues of the sea and sky and the creamy whites of cumulus clouds.

Susan Hand Shetterly, one of Maine’s most poetic writers, lovingly describes Curry’s paintings of these landscapes: “For those of us who have lived a long time in the Maine landscape, it is as if Tom Curry were rendering the ache of the familiar and beloved” (from S. H. Shetterly, Down East magazine).

Curry has lived in this Maine Shangri-La for over two decades, finding a constant source of inspiration in his surroundings.

“For the past 22 years, I have painted the landscape around my home in Maine, including a small island [Chatto] just offshore that has become the subject of a series of more than 60 paintings,” he says. “In this series, I paint the interplay of light, sky and water. Working outdoors, I can be in direct contact with the clear, searing light or the dense fog, the heat of the sun or a frigid wind, the sounds of crickets or distant drone of a fishing boat. I seek to create a powerful and intimate sense — and experience — of these places using layers of saturated color and compositions distilled to bold, elemental forms.”

Chatto Island is the focus of several of Tom Curry’s new paintings at Gleason Fine Art. In both “Eventide” and “Twilight,” Curry explores the quickly changing colors that twilight brings. In “Morning Glow,” a sun-struck, lime-green Chatto floats halfway between a surreal sea and sky of intense blue-gray — signaling a wild weather day in Brooklin.

“Tom Curry: Surrounded by Water” runs through Sept. 8 at Gleason Fine Art in Boothbay Harbor. Although there will be no artist reception, the gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays. All current CDC precautions are followed. For more information, call the gallery at 207-633-6849 or email [email protected]. To view Tom Curry’s show, as well as the gallery’s entire inventory of contemporary and estate art, check out the gallery’s website at gleasonfineart.com.