Gleason Fine Art announces two new shows at the gallery at 31 Townsend Ave. in Boothbay Harbor. “Henry Isaacs: Sailing on a Deep Blue Sea” opens on July 2 and runs through Aug. 3. “Kevin Beers: Light and Shadow” runs through July 24. Both Kevin and Henry will attend the First Friday reception on Friday, July 3, from 5 to 7 pm.

Kevin Beers was in art school when abstraction was all the rage. Although Beers was clearly very talented, his professors constantly tried to dissuade him from painting in the representational style he loved. Listening to his own muse, Kevin was drawn to the powerful realism of Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, and George Bellows, all of whom had fallen in love with the coast of Maine, especially Monhegan Island. After school, Beers was finally able to visit Maine, seeking out the very places painted by Hopper, Bellows, and Kent—craggy islands, dramatic headlands guarded by lighthouses, sun-dazzled white buildings, and intense blue skies and seas. As with so many artists before him, Beers was struck by the quality of light in Maine, by the way it bounced off surfaces everywhere, creating sharp shadows and brilliant colors.

He knew that he had found where he wanted to live, but it would be 10 years before he would sell his Park Slope apartment and move to Maine. When he did, he chose the Midcoast town of Rockland. Settling into a comfortable house within walking distance of the ocean, Beers is now free to range up and down Maine’s coast. In his new show "Light and Shadow,” Kevin delights us with the joy he has found living here, painting the rugged beauty of Maine’s coast and its simple, stark-white buildings.

Henry Isaacs grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a family that valued education and worldliness. Henry’s father taught architecture at Harvard University, and the family knew and socialized with many well-known figures. Henry himself has had a varied and impressive education, including the Slade School of Art in London, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Putney School in Vermont. Isaacs’s teaching career is even more impressive and varied, with stints teaching drawing at Dartmouth, drawing and painting at Mass College of Art, and drawing at several European colleges. Henry Isaacs carries his paints with him everywhere and has painted all over the world, including Africa, Europe, and the Himalayas. But it was his stay in the village of Islesford on Cranberry Island off Mount Desert Island that was a turning point in what he chose to paint.

On Cranberry, Henry found himself surrounded by the constantly changing blues and greens of ocean water; ragged, wind-whipped evergreens; and, overhead, mounds of billowing, wind-pushed clouds racing through a cobalt sky. For Isaacs, painting the coast of Maine grew from a pastime to a passion. Isaacs’s new show “Sailing on a Deep Blue Sea” showcases this love. With a style that reminds us of the French impressionists, Isaacs paints with energy and self-assurance. His palette of delicate blues, greens, pinks, and yellows marks him as one of the most recognizable artists working in Maine today. In the words of one arts writer: “Isaacs’s brushwork is strong, but primarily dedicated to the job of pushing paint around the canvas–an activity Isaacs clearly enjoys” (Kany, MST).

Please join us on July 3, from 5 to 7 p.m. to celebrate their new work, share a glass of wine, and their many stories from the art world, with you. See all of Henry and Kevin's work at gleasonfineart.com. For more information, call the gallery: 207-633-6849.