Savory Maine Dining & Provisions is pleased to exhibit the paintings of Alna artist Jon Luoma through Oct. 17.  Luoma works mostly in watercolors and Chinese inks, occasionally in other media such as woodcut or acrylic paints.  This exhibit consists almost entirely of landscape paintings, many of mountainous regions, from Maine, Newfoundland, and the Nepal Himalayas.

An enthusiastic hiker, canoeist, and cross-country skier, Luoma finds that the natural world, wild lands, and their plant and animal inhabitants provide continuous and inexhaustible inspiration in all four seasons.  Despite many differences Maine, Newfoundland and the Himalayas share an out-of-the-way, remote, sometimes lonely, and sometimes severe natural beauty.  Such wild “northern” landscapes, with exposed rock, rushing streams, and gnarled trees, suggest the classical landscape paintings of China, in which people are often only visitors, dwarfed by mountains, waters, and weather.

 Luoma has exhibited locally in Damariscotta galleries, at River Arts Gallery, Miles Memorial Hospital, Skidompha Public Library, and Rising Tide Market. He has had one-person exhibits at Tidemark Gallery in Waldoboro.  He has received several Jurors’ Choice and Peoples’ Choice awards.

He was artist-in-residence at Hidden Valley Nature Center in Jefferson in 2013.  His original illustrations for a limited letterpress edition of Thoreau’s “The Maine Woods” are in the collection of the Portland Museum of Art.  Two of his paintings of Baxter State Park are reproduced in “Art of Katahdin” by David Little (Down East Books, 2013).

Jon Luoma has a B. A. in studio art from Marlboro College, Marlboro, Vermont (1975).  He has also studied traditional Chinese ink painting in Chengdu, Sichuan, China.

Savory Maine is located at 11 Water Street, Damariscotta.  It is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. serving lunch and dinner. Closed Wednesdays.  

For more information call 207-563-2111, ‘like’ Savory Maine on Facebook, or visit www.savorymainedining.com.