at open studio and artwalk events around the Seacoast, May 12-14

At the Button Factory in Portsmouth on Friday and Saturday, painters Aysen Aycan Orhon and Roger Goldenberg displayed some of their most accomplished work, and also gave some curious visitors a sneak peak at a new series in progress.

Goldenberg spent January in residency at the Vermont Studio Center, where he found himself “just trying things I’d never tried before.” Hanging high on the walls around studio #325 were new  “prayer flags,” which started as bright colors washed across paper to cut up for his assemblages, but which ended up emerging as art in their own right. In them, one visitor noted, she saw elements of nature—lakes, sunsets, fields, raindrops, ice, underwater scenes, horizons—while another observed how they resembled textiles. For another visitor, Goldenberg pulled out pen and ink drawings in shades of black and blueprint blue that he worked on between creating his traditional assemblages. “I worked myself to exhaustion and came back rejuvenated,” he said with a laugh.

Orhon’s studio #208 featured paintings from her Kaftan series, which reflects her interest in her Turkish heritage, its unique characteristics symbolized by traditional apparel of the sort that’s quickly becoming an artifact not only in her native Istanbul, but in cultures around the world. Similarly, her new acrylic “tent” series reflects more of her thinking “about the cultural details that are diminishing, not only in Turkey, but in the whole world.” As if observed from various perspectives simultaneously, the white tents on a background of blue or yellow or green emerge as a simple shape, reminiscent of a parachute or a kite. Her work was inspired both by Red Cross tents she saw on television after the 1999 earthquake in Turkey and by miniatures created by artists of the Ottoman Empire. In a different vein, the far wall of her studio was filled with light and engaging small paintings newly completed for Nahcotta’s recent “Enormous Tiny Art Show.” Depicted nearly abstractly, whales are broken into masses of tail, flank and profile, receding and arriving through a mist-like veil.

Four painters and a photographer exhibited their work at the Picker Building in Dover on Saturday night, showing off newly opened studio spaces in the old mill building. Painters Daisy Adams, Nick Ellard, Stacey Durand and Nate Walker hung assorted paintings on the walls of the wood-floored lobby, while photographer Aaron Rohde displayed framed photos in his studio. Both Adams and Durand focus their work on quaint roadside scenes like country diners and shops, many of them based on real establishments in the area. Their work provided a sharp contrast to that of Ellard and Walker, who paint solid objects viewed in natural settings. Many of Ellard’s paintings portray close-ups of cracked rock faces, producing a highly tactile visual effect. Walker’s art includes broader desert landscapes that call to mind the canyons and parks of southern Utah and Nevada.

Rohde, whose photography career has encompassed weddings, portraits and work with newspapers, showed a spectrum of prints ranging from presidential candidates to nature scenes to images of picturesque Dover. One photo showed a profile of Rudy Giuliani with a bead of sweat tricking down his temple, while another directly below it showed a scantily clad snowboarder skimming across the surface of a pond.

Adams, Ellard and Rohde, all of whom live in Dover and rent studios in the Picker Building, coordinated the multi-artist open house and invited Durand and Walker to contribute. As they watch the art scene develop in Dover, the three Picker occupants said, they have benefited from having ideal studio space so close to home.

In Newmarket, youth art was on the menu at cafes, florist shops, salons and art galleries around town during the LACA Artwalk. Work by students in the Colorful Visions Paint Club, an after-school program for students in grades 3-5, hung on the walls of 10 downtown businesses that also offered special treats—carnations, coffee and dinner discounts, among them, in honor of the students and their mothers for Mother’s Day weekend. The event was produced by the Lamprey Arts and Culture Alliance, and also featured a visit by Ethel Hills to Ampers& Studio on Main Street, where her work is featured in the gallery through May.