The Richard Boyd Art Gallery on Peaks Island announces its September exhibition, “From A Woman's Perspective,” opening Thursday, Sept. 1 featuring the works of Pat Chandler, Julianne Garvey, Kim Skillin Traina, Felicity Sidwell (Phippsburg) and Jane Herbert (Damariscotta). Each artist has Her own style, technique and approach to art that has been shaped by her experiences and inner journey coming of age during the 1960s and 1970s. The exhibition runs through Sept. 29.

About the artists

Kim Skillin Traina is a graduate of Southeastern Massachusetts University with majors in visual design and photography. Her career as a graphic designer and photographer spans more than three decades. Traina's creative process evolved from doing things by hand and developing images in the darkroom, to creating on the computer.

“As much as technology has opened a whole new world of creative tools for exploration, I still love working with my hands. Six years ago, my love of the Maine coast and drawing inspired me to create works en plein air,” Traina said. “I selected pastels as my medium. Creating works in pastel allows me to capture the magic of the moment. My creativity is my expression of my passion for life, for nature, and of deep gratitude for this incredible place I live in.”

Jane Herbert has an unstructured approach to art and life that serves her well. As a child of the 1950s, she watched the building of interstate highways “and followed their lines around many a bend.” After a year at Montserrat School of Visual Art, Herbert gathered her paint brushes and toured Europe in a micro-bus, painting and learning as she went.

“My painting style is born out of my experiences. The bold colors of the sixties have mellowed and blended with the background, along with the sometimes humorous, sometimes dark pen and inks left along the road,” shared Herbert. “Life has been a creative, do-it-yourself adventure for me. I know that much of my contentment comes from the inner journey I have been on. Through my life I have embraced my creativity, and painting specifically.”

Felicity Sidwell grew up in Hertfordshire, England and came to the U.S. with her husband in 1971, settling in Newtown, Connecticut, where they lived for 30 years. She raised three boys - as well as sheep and chickens – yet always found time to paint. In 2006, Sidwell moved to Midcoast Maine, often painting with the Plein Air Painters of Maine (PAPME) to capture the colors and light of the landscape of Maine. She now lives in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to be near her grandchildren and “to explore in paint, the country of farmland and forested hills reminiscent of the landscape of Hertfordshire.”

“I paint outside as much as possible to capture and express in paint the fleeting colors of land and sky. I want my paintings to capture the feeling I have when I’m standing, immersed in the natural world around me, untouched by human intervention. In my paintings I hope to express the sense of calm I find in the fishing villages and on small family farms in Maine. That feeling of calm, seems to be part of an older more natural order that fits into the environment with a beauty of its own.”

Pat Chandler received her BFA in illustration from Rhode Island School of design in Providence, RI and MFA in painting and printmaking from Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY. Pat grew up in rural Maine in the 1950s where the environment was essential to her development as a child.

“Maine’s more remote regions inspired many of my paintings to the same degree that its landscapes informed my early life. My creative process and production inevitably refer to my geographic roots,” Chandler said. “Throughout my 50 year career as a commercial and fine artist, I have retained an interest in various forms of realism persisting in contemporary 20th and 21st century art. In all of my paintings there is a continuum that began in realism but over time evolved into more expressionistic, abstracted works.”

Julianne Garvey moved to Maine in 1980. She studied art at The University of Georgia, her first two years of college, later graduating from The College of William and Mary in Virginia.

“Since graduating, family life and work have taken the majority of my time, but have never dampened my enthusiasm for expressing myself through many different mediums, with my first love being watercolors. I’m not sure if any artist knows why we create art, beyond the simple fact that we do,” Garvey said. “Of course living in Maine, being surrounded by the constant beauty that abounds here, is my neverending inspiration. I do know that I love creating art and just wouldn’t feel complete if I were not to do so.”

Richard Boyd Art Gallery is located on Peaks Island in Portland at the corner of Island Avenue and Epps Street, first building on the right, on the first floor.

For more information, contact the gallery: 207-712-1097, info@richardboydartgallery.com, or visit www.richardboydartgallery.com.