“It’s not just landscape painting,” explained Katherine Whitlock, gallery co-manager at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences in Loveladies.

Don’t expect to find dozens of blue and green scenes of beach and marsh. Instead, expect to find stories. Expect a sense of familiarity, perhaps nostalgia, and personal interaction with the coastal landscape, to warm the heart and awaken the senses.

The works in the seventh “Island Life” Plein Air/Plus Exhibition, on display through the end of the month, are more than pretty pictures.