Watercolor exhibit opening at Flagship Gallery

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, April 28, 2026

PORT TOWNSEND — “Salish Explorations,” an exhibit by Maria Coryell-Martin, will open at noon Friday.

The free exhibit will be on display at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center’s Flagship Gallery, 1001 Water St., Port Townsend.

The exhibit will feature watercolor field paintings Coryell-Martin created during artistic residencies aboard the Port Townsend-Coupeville ferry in fall 2025 and at Fort Worden, through Centrum, in spring 2026.

Coryell-Martin is an expeditionary artist, continuing the tradition of traveling artists who work as naturalists and educators. Her travels have taken her to some of the world’s most remote environments, where she has encountered polar bears, leopard seals, emperor penguins and narwhals.

In the field, she sketches and paints to create a palette of place, and she later develops studio works that expand on those field experiences to foster curiosity and care for the natural world.

“There’s an immediacy and urgency to field sketching that I love,” Coryell-Martin said. “The broad brushstrokes, the rain sometimes falling on my paper, and the distillation of the landscape’s essential elements through watercolor all shape the work. This fieldwork becomes the foundation for larger studio paintings and an opportunity to revisit and refine what was captured in the moment.”

Selected works in the exhibit will be available for purchase.

Coryell-Martin also has developed her own expedition sketching tools at www.arttoolkit.com.

“Salish Explorations” will be on display from noon to 3 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays until July 31.