Studio 53 Fine Arts' new show, “Pieced Together,” features the works of Paula Ragsdale, Nikki Schumann, Kim and Philippe Villard. Four artists with distinctly different approaches within a shared medium. All four have based their respective pursuits of late in mixed media, which opens up all kinds of innovated and highly personalized techniques for an artist.

The public is invited to come see just how exciting and interesting this new work is through July 27. An opening reception is planned for Friday, July 4 from 5 to 8 p.m. You’ll be able to ask the artist’s more about their work, while sipping complimentary wine and nibbling on fine edibles.

Paula Ragsdale has been one of the regular artists in the collective at Studio 53 Fine Art Gallery for the last four years. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design’s illustration department, she has kept herself open to incorporating different materials in much of her fine art. Trained in drawing and painting, she identifies herself more closely as a designer than strict painter, as demonstrated in her most recent mixed media collages. Ragsdale's pieces in this exhibit are rendered in acrylic paint and paper collage, and the subject matter is motivated by her natural surroundings. Ragsdale pieces together her love for her home, and her place in nature, on to these new surfaces.

Nikki Schumann has her imagery represented in many homes across the country via her hugely successful, former art calendar business, and her more recent fine art print website. She has “dual citizenship” in both Maine and North Carolina, and expresses beautifully crafted thoughts and feelings on canvases with fabric collage. Schumann is a graphic artist with a background in silkscreen printing, whose primary interest is in shape, simplified composition, and bold flat colors. She loves the sense of motion attained with fabric collage, as opposed to paper, and the feel of her fabric. The sense of her fabric’s history — as well as Schumann’s own — and her pure joy emanate from her new pieces.

Kim Villard is a well-known name in the Boothbay region and beyond. She and her husband, Philippe, are officially dual citizens of both the U.S. and France, making their living as artists in both countries. Villard’s process in creating her new pieces may be unfamiliar to most, even the most ardent art aficionados. For the last couple of years, while in southern France, she has been exploring oxydo-gravure a technique invented by Guy Breniaux, a contemporary French artist. Basically, it’s "oxidation-etching" where the original footprint and oxidation of different metal pieces become engraving, and in Villard’s work, it also becomes the foundation for her acrylic and watercolor renderings. The result is enchanting.

Philippe Villard, along with his wife, is an accomplished woodcut printmaker, and will be showing his latest creations, which are uniquely his, and of his own invention. Inspired by the raw, savage beauty of their off-the-grid-home in the Massif des Maures forest of Provence (especially the undergrowth churned up by wild boar) he selects roots and wooden pieces that speak to him of animal forms. These conjured human and animal “models” are echoed by his elegantly simple line drawings, and are smartly framed together for a striking statement of nature in its purest form. His most recent pieces draw inspiration from his other home here in coastal Maine that incorporate driftwood. Philippe has “pieced together” some of his most whimsical, yet powerful, elements found on any beach or forest.

The Studio 53 Fine Art Gallery is located at 53 Townsend Avenue in downtown Boothbay Harbor. The gallery's hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Off street parking is in the back of the gallery.

For more information, call Studio 53 Fine Art at 207-633-2755 and visit the gallery online at www.studio53fineart.com.