Damariscotta — River Arts invites the public to the opening reception for the exhibition “Still Life and Beyond” Friday, Feb. 1, from 5 to 7 p.m. at its newly-expanded and renovated gallery on Route 1, next to N.C. Hunt Lumber. The theme of the exhibition goes beyond the traditional still life genre to include all art that explores objects as its main focus.

The show will continue through Feb. 28. It includes 121 works by artists from the Midcoast and around the state in a wide variety of media including collage, photography, sculpture, assemblage and fiber arts, as well as oil, acrylic and pastel.

Midcoast artists with work in “Still Life and Beyond” are: Abbie Read of Appleton; Amy Cornell of Camden; Elaine Niemi of Friendship; Jack Kennedy of Lincolnville Center; Sylvia Murdock of Port Clyde; Gwen Sylvester, Ronald Hillson Tesler, Diane Hebert Green, Jeanette Phillipps and Catherine Leroy of Rockland; Holly Smith of Rockport; Sandi Cirillo of Searsport; Luise Van Keuren of Spruce Head; William Landmesser of Stockton Springs; Otty Merrill and Carmella Yager of Tenants Harbor; Peter Lehman of Thomaston; Joyce Steel, Nathan Nicholls, Roberta Goshke, Robert Macdonald, Jean Kigel, Anne Heywood and Richard Horton of Waldoboro.

Jurors Dennis and Marty Gleason are the well-known owners of the Gleason Fine Art Galleries in Boothbay Harbor and Portland. The couple opened their first gallery in what they describe as a tiny space in a Boothbay Harbor side street in 1985 and are in their 27th year in their two well-established galleries.

River Arts is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information, call 563-1507 or send email to info@riverartsme.org.

Courier Publications’ A&E Editor Dagney C. Ernest can be reached at (207) 594-4401, ext. 115 or dernest@courierpublicationsllc.com.

“Heating with Wood, I” by William Landmesser of Stockton Springs is in “Still Life and Beyond.”