Gleason Fine Art will host two opening receptions this weekend, one on Friday for Kevin Beers’ exhibition “On My Own” and one on Saturday for Lyn Asselta’s show, “The Poetic Coast,” and Ed Parker’s, “Painted Stories,” as well as Beers’. Both shows are from 5-7 p.m. All three artists will be at the Saturday reception.

Kevin Beers

In his new show, Beers, a Maine resident for four years, will “dazzle his many admirers” with brushy oils of brilliant white buildings with red rooves, bluebird blue skies and busy working harbors, the gallery said in a prepared release. Beers’ exhibition runs through July 15.

Beers is drawn to the powerful realism of Edward Hopper, George Bellows and Robert Henri, all of whom loved Maine and returned to the coast frequently, especially Monhegan Island. Some years after art school, Beers was finally able to visit the Maine coast. The weather was terrible, and he did not make it out to Monhegan. Beers persisted, and two years later, when he returned to Maine, his luck turned: the weather was wonderful and he did make it to the famed artists’ island. Beers was smitten; here at last was a place that beckoned to be painted. He returned to the island every summer for years. Finally, after quitting his job in NYC and selling his apartment in Brooklyn, he was able to buy his own home on the Maine coast.

After the tragic and unsettling loss of a large number of his paintings in the 2023 fires that destroyed several buildings in Port Clyde, it took a year for Beers to reenergize and regroup. After a trip to visit family in California and a long, restorative stay on Monhegan last summer, Beers returned to his studio this winter with renewed energy and passion.

With over two dozen fresh canvases, “On My Own” celebrates Beers’ return to painting and to Monhegan.

Lyn Asselta

Asselta’s exhibition opens July 3 and runs through July 29.

The Damariscotta artist is hailed by Gleason Fine Arts as “one of the most gifted pastel artists in the country.” Apart from all of the awards she has won, she is also one of the few artists who have achieved the level of “master” in the several pastel societies to which she belongs. Asselta’s talent is immense, and given her generous and highly approachable nature, she shares that talent with as many people as she can. She travels widely and maintains a dizzying schedule of teaching workshops, preparing new work for at least two shows per year and traveling back and forth between her home in the Midcoast and Florida, where she visits her daughter and granddaughter and restocks her Florida gallery.

Asselta is almost as talented as a writer and poet as she is a painter. Each Saturday, she writes and publishes a fresh edition of “Saturdays at the Cove,” her reflections on life and art, always accompanied by a piece of her art. As with her paintings, Asselta’s writings are sensitive and beautiful  but never overly sentimental. Her many fans can expect to see a new book of her paintings and writings this fall.

Ed Parker

Parker’s “Painted Stories” opens July 3 and runs through July 29.

Parker is one of America’s leading marine painters and lives with his wife full-time on Southport Island. Parker’s paintings are influenced and informed by 19th-century-era graphics, early American paintings, historical photographs and maritime traditions. Parker’s Yankee sensibilities combined with his love of a play on words, his deep respect for history and a sophisticated sense of design, proportion and color all contribute to his unique position as a maritime artist with a sense of humor.

As with many maritime artists, Parker’s sailing ships, passenger ferries and even canoes are meticulously drawn. However, the decks of Parker’s ships are as likely to be crowded with dogs, cats, roosters, cows and horses, as with sailors. Mermaids and fierce sea serpents swim in Parker’s oceans as well as whales.

For his summer show, Parker has given the Gleason Fine Arts “some of the best work we’ve seen,” the gallery said, including “A Circus of Puffins,” which shows a pile of seven delightful puffins garbed in colorful circus outfits. Not to be outdone, “A Squabble of Seagulls” features 10 herring gulls squawking and arguing. In “Greenland Whale Fisheries” a majestic schooner presides over a losing battle against a pod of
sperm whales, while polar bears and walruses look on.

Gleason Fine Art is located at 31 Townsend Ave. in Boothbay Harbor. For more information, visit gleasonfineart.com, call 633-6849 or email info@gleasonfineart.com.