The new exhibition at the River Arts Gallery, “The Four Seasons of Maine” showing work by Sally Smith and Lina Burley will run through July 3. The paintings on exhibit reflect the seasons as both a summer person and a native Mainer sees them.

Using different media, the works are not place bound, but weather bound, reflecting different light different tonalities, the different character of branches and trees, water and rocks, flowers and islands, in every season.

Lina Burley received a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland and later studied at the famed Art Students League in New York City with George Grosz, Edwin Dickenson and Seong Moy from 1956 to 1962.

She served twice as president of the Boothbay Region Art Foundation and was a Director of the Maine Art Gallery in Wiscasset. Her work has been exhibited in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Florida and Maine, including the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland and Bowdoin College in Brunswick.

She won numerous awards, including a National Association of Women Artists medal of honor for water media, and two of her works were accepted by the Portland Museum of Art for their permanent collection.

“Living on the coast of Maine, surrounded by the beauty of the landscape and the alternate turmoil and quietness of the sea, I have for many years been dedicated to painting these natural forms, simplifying and altering the obvious scenery in an attempt to capture the atmosphere and essence of this special place,” Burley said.

Sally Smith, a resident of East Boothbay, was one of the first two young artists to be given academic credit for painting at Wellesley College. This began a studio art program that has grown in significance and numbers to match Wellesley’s art history program.

She is a native of Maine, having been born in Farmington, and raised in Orono, but studied at Wellesley, then the University of Vermont, Vermont Technical College, and the American Studies Graduate Program at George Washington University.

She has designed houses, researched historic buildings, and drawn and painted for over 40 years, while living in Vermont, Virginia, California, and Paris, France.

River Arts, open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and Sunday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., is located at 241 Route 1 (North) in Damariscotta.

For information about the many exhibitions, classes, events and opportunities at River Arts, visit www.riverartsme.org or call 207-563-1507 or stop in.