Tom Curry, Morning Glow, oil on birch panel, 24×60” Courtesy of Gleason FIne Art

BOOTHBAY HARBOR — Gleason Fine Art presents “Tom Curry: Surrounded by Water,” through Sept. 8. The Brooklin, Maine, artist has been represented by Gleason Fine Art for over 15 years, with this being his fourth solo show.

Curry is intrigued with the idea of being surrounded by water. His first port of call after completing degrees at the Rhode Island School of Design and Yale was Hawaii. After tiring of Hawaii, Curry and his wife, the science and children’s book writer Kim Ridley, tried a different kind of community — the tiny, picturesque village of Brooklin.

It’s hard to get away from the water in Brooklin. Jutting peninsulas, waterfalls and 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.

Curry’s paintings of these landscapes are described by Susan Hand Shetterly: “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.”

Curry has lived in Maine 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 off shore that has become the subject of a series of more than 60 paintings. In this series, I paint the interplay of light, sky, and water.”

Curry, a plein-air painter, finds that: “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.

Though there will be no artist reception, the gallery is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday. All current CDC precautions are followed.

For more information, call the gallery at (207) 633-6849 or email info@gleasonfineart.com. 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, gleasonfineart.com.