Wrapping up the year, December’s Art ’Round Town event brought new work by familiar names and a few surprises to Portsmouth galleries. 

Maine artist Marshall Henderson Dackert introduced his work in “Landscaped Memories from Mexico,” a collection of paintings on exhibit at the McLaughlin-Hills Gallery on State Street.

Dackert lived and painted in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, in 2006 and returned with an artistic focus on the memories he left behind. He now lives in Portland, Maine.

Dackert’s recent paintings are inspired by the feelings and essence of a place, such as the way a sound, sight or smell can trigger a long gone experience. His work brings an American perspective on the Mexican landscape and complements the gallery’s other works by indigenous Mexican artists who express a similar fondness for the culture.

Jennifer Judd-McGee returned to Nahcotta on Congress Street for her second solo show, titled, “Reverie,” which she says “is about joy and hopefulness and strengthening, about finding that dreamy place where beauty and calm is found in the tiniest unexpected details.”

Judd-McGee explores the coast of Maine with a camera, focusing on the soft outlines found in nature as inspiration for her work of meticulously cut paper, mixed media, and paper and ink. Much of this colorful work is repetitive patterns, such as rows of leaves, flowers, or beach stones.

Judd-McGee’s work has been shown in numerous galleries and included in several books, including “The Handmade Marketplace,” which is available at Nahcotta. She is a regular illustrator for Maine Magazine, and has designed for major brands and the MTA Arts for Transit Program in New York City. Recently diagnosed with a chronic illness, Judd-McGee’s art continues to evolve.

Kennedy Gallery and Framing on Market Street is showing a collection of recent landscape paintings by Chris Volpe, who continues to blur the lines between the seen and the imagined with images that seem to capture a transition from one to the other. He draws from the New England landscape, art history and poetry.

The New Hampshire Art Association opened its annual holiday exhibition and sale with work from many of its 400 members, both established and emerging. The sprawling selection of original pieces fills the State Street gallery’s walls in all styles and mediums, both framed and unframed, many priced $200 and under.

Don Gorvett’s Piscataqua Fine Arts Gallery has returned to Portsmouth at 123 Market Square and rejoined Art ’Round Town. Gorvett has also opened a studio called Black Bear Fine Art in Ogunquit, Maine. He continues to produce large-scale reduction woodcut prints on an etching press and also shows work by other artists.

The new exhibits will remain on display through December. For more information, visit www.artroundtown.org.