Cited by Art New England in 2010 as one of Maine’s most respected artists, Brenda Bettinson, now aged 86, has recently completed a brilliant new series of 21 paintings. Given the apt title “The Earth Remembers,” these new works will be shown for the first time at Mathias Fine Art. The exhibition opens on Thursday, June 30 and will remain on view through September 11.

Throughout the past six years Bettinson’s studio output has focused on what writer on art Carl Little has described as “the shadow and horror of contemporary wars.” Varying her approach by switching between expressionism and abstraction she has succeeded in finding new visual vocabularies to express the violence, terror, ruthlessness, cruelty and destruction that contribute to the dreadfulness of wars waged on civilian populations.

These astounding works are small in scale; their surfaces are irregular and glow with the luminosity of color-field painting. The presentation of the work is unconventional: some of the smallest pieces are informally gathered together in large unglazed frames, while the larger pieces look out at the viewer from plain white standard exhibition frames.

“The Earth Remembers” muses over the World War 1 battle sites of Flanders and Picardy where today the battlefields are lush rolling pastureland, where thick, deep layers of grass hide the detritus of broken weapons, broken bodies.

Bettinson knows only too well that the earth remembers: in her youth, among other subjects she studied archeology; as a graduate student assisting at digs in France and Italy, she frequently witnessed the gradual appearance of the detritus of past ages, as team workers carefully dug down through the earth’s surface into the underlying strata that cradled the bones and artifacts of past ages.

A second group of the artist’s paintings “The Trojan Women” may be seen in the gallery’s small room. The theme here is the victimization of civilian populations, particularly the victimization of women, in time of war. Bettinson has always avoided the trap of illustration in her painting, thus in these larger paintings there is no direct depiction of conflict and violence, instead she expresses emotion, terror, and psychopathy through the distorted and ravaged features of larger than life-size portrait type heads.

“The Earth Remembers” exhibition has a component of audience participation: Viewers are invited to record their impressions of the show on a scroll which starts with Bettinson’s artist statement. Perhaps gallery goers will reflect on their own experience of WWI memorials and battlefields and the role that that great conflict played in their own family’s lives.

There will be several events associated with this exhibition at the gallery. Dates and information will be posted on the gallery website www.mathiasfineart.com or call 207-633-7404. The gallery, located at 10 Mathias Drive, is open Wednesday through Sunday noon to 5 p.m. and by appointment.