As new members of the Pemaquid Art Gallery this season, Alexandra Perry-Weiss and Sherrie York are showing realism-based images of the beauties of Maine.

Perry-Weiss’s works are colorful, lush oil paintings and, in a completely different medium, York’s works are brilliant linocut prints.

The two artists have quite different backgrounds, according to The Pemaquid Group of Artists, in a news release. Perry-Weiss takes up a life-long interest in classical oil painting after retirement from 30 years of executive experience managing homecare and hospice agencies, and York continues a life-long career that encompasses environmental education, natural history illustration, birding and printmaking. However, they are similar in their deep appreciation of the coastal Maine world around them.

Alexandra Perry-Weiss raised her family on a blueberry farm in Waldoboro and, after living elsewhere, recently relocated to Bristol following her successful career in the medical field. She then pursued her art interests by first training at the Gibbes School of Art in Charleston, South Carolina, and continuing her studies in drawing and painting with well known artists from Maine, Colorado, Tennessee, Massachusetts and Michigan, as well as traveling abroad to manage and participate in art workshops in France and Italy. Painting has opened her eyes “to an expanded world of light and shadow, color harmony, composition and perspective” and “is a privilege I never take for granted.f”

Sherrie York is a self-taught printmaker whose linocut technique is demonstrated on her website, www.sherrieyork.com. Through her linocuts she “finds her way to place, inspired by personal experiences and discoveries as she explores the natural world from mountains to the sea.” According to PGA, her work is well known in the birding world and has been presented in national and international exhibitions, including a major retrospective in 2019 at the Museum of American Bird Art in Massachusetts. She has been an invited artist, artist-in-residence, popular instructor in field sketching and printmaking both internationally and in Maine at the Farnsworth Art Museum and Audubon’s Hog Island Camp, as well as being on the board of the Society for Animal Artists and Midcoast Audubon Society.

“Perry-Weiss’s oil paintings are richly colored, full of contrasting lights and darks, and often lushly textured with a strong brush stroke structures building her clear and simplified forms,” said PGA. “She depicts both the details of the man-made Maine coast, boats, charming houses, coastal villages and also soaring landscapes and seascapes with towering clouds, pounding waves and peaceful beaches. She explores the effects of light, atmosphere, shadows on the natural world, unifying the mood of each scene.

“What different, striking images York’s linocut prints create, where “simple” progressive carving away of a linoleum block and printing with different colors at different states of the carving create highly intricate, beautiful patterns and fascinating senses of depth and even atmospheric effects on the printed paper.”

The other 2021 Pemaquid Art Gallery artists include: Barbara Applegate, Debra Arter, Bruce Babb, Julie Babb, Stephen Busch, John Butke, Dianne Dolan, Gwendolyn Evans, Peggy Farrell, Sarah Fisher, Claire Hancock, Kay Sawyer Hannah, Kathleen Horst, Hannah Ineson, Will Kefauver, Jan Kilburn, Barbara Klein, Patti Leavitt, Sally Loughridge, Judy Nixon, Brooke Pacy, Paul Sherman, Cindy Spencer, Liliana Thelander, Kim Traina, Barbara Vanderbilt, Bob Vaughan, Candace Vlcek, Bev Walker and Carol Wiley.