FEATURE-April 2014 
By Britta Konau

Fresh From the Studio

For this year’s artists listing we searched for the freshest work by well-established and emerging or underrecognized artists alike. So who better to ask about what’s happening in Maine studios right now but the artists themselves?

We asked 37 well-known and highly respected artists what they are currently working on and whether they are deepening a commitment to a longer exploration or going in new directions. We learned about some surprising new developments from artists whose work we thought we knew so well. For others, that kind of change comes more gradually, maybe even unnoticed until it has happened. None have run out of fresh ideas to explore. We also asked each of these established practitioners to suggest one artist with a connection to Maine who could be described as emerging or deserving of more recognition from curators, critics, and collectors alike. 

So another 35 artists joined this listing and were asked the same question: what are you working on right now? While these artists are generally younger, the terms “emerging” and “underrecognized” suggest complexities beyond questions of age or self-description. Does the label “emerging artist” imply importance of critical recognition, or is it an acknowledgment of recently finding a unique voice? The reasons these particular artists were chosen by the more established ones vary widely and are often intriguing—sometimes a perceived affinity in artistic outlook, in other cases, for working in an exactly opposite direction, but most frequently, simply appreciation of a fellow artist’s endeavor.

ESTABLISHED ARTISTS

HAROLD GARDE
“At work in my studio I keep reaching into that dark barrel that houses my life’s artwork to see if I can pull out yet another painting. And when I do, I feel fortunate to discover that there is indeed still a painting there, and it is always a surprise.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Harold Garde: Master Works, Jai Gallery, Orlando, Florida, through April 18, 2014
Kimonos: Strappo Prints by Harold Garde, touring under the auspices of the University of 
Wyoming Art Museum, Star Valley Arts Council, Thayne, Wyoming, April 2014 

Portrait with Black Eyes, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 44” x 55”

DOZIER BELL
“The idea of animal consciousness, including the animal level of human consciousness, has always been the basis of my art, but with the exception of some early dog paintings, my work has been without human or animal presences. In the past year, however, I’ve been painting and drawing birds. I feel that from the beginning, I’ve been creating a single artwork, not truly discrete images. They all relate to and inform one another.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, March 4–April 12, 2014 
solo show, Danese Corey Gallery, New York, October 2014

Roost, 2013, charcoal on Mylar, 3.25” x 4.75”

ANNA HEPLER
“I am working on a series of sculptural sketches made from clay. The forms are dense, sometimes geometric and vaguely mechanical, sometimes biomorphic, all aspiring to an essential simplicity. I join slabs of clay together without a plan until a mysterious resolution is reached. These forms may provide the source material for larger sculptural pieces or become the subjects of drawings or photographs, generating myriad possibilities for expansion.”

UPCOMING SHOW:
solo show, University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, summer 2015

Alphabet, 2014 (work in progress), ceramic, dimensions variable 

SCOTT DAVIS
“My work has always been metaphysical in nature; its forms have always spoken to what’s behind the veil. There seems to be a sense of narrative and, to me, a timeless calling for it to exist. The Greek Eleusinian Mysteries, along with artists like Giotto, Morandi, and Duchamp, still are touchstones for me. The Mysteries, most importantly, were the first to put forth the concept of ‘light’ after death instead of darkness. In the end, I want to engage viewers as long as possible and leave them other than they were, if only for a moment.”

Oracle, 2014, acrylic on linen, 48” diameter

CONNIE HAYES
“My paintings currently involve flowers and workspaces related to gardening where tools and supplies bring outside chaos into an interior. Portraits of flower heads present gardens’ individuals. The subject matter gives this work a narrative quality, but I still like to teeter along the edge of abstraction. The visceral quality of paint itself invites departure from explicit depiction.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
solo show, Aucocisco Galleries, Portland, April 29–May 17, 2014
Monhegan Artists’ Residency, 25 Years, Thos. Moser, Freeport, May 26–September 1, 2014
solo show, Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, June 2014 

Brooms and Rakes, 2013, oil on canvas, 40” x 30”

CHARLIE HEWITT
“I have been painting, my most feral medium which requires isolated studio time, as well as co-producing season five of The Madness of Art. I have also gotten more into public sculpture, with the next piece going up in Lewiston. Maine has allowed me access to skilled artisans and craftsmen who have been instrumental in the development of my large-scale projects. I have come to realize that in my studio work emotional content relies on the art itself; in the public work the audience is in a large way the emotional content.”

UPCOMING SHOW:
solo show of paintings, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, fall 2014

Brooklyn Swing, 2012–2013, painted aluminum and stainless steel, 105” x 165” x 31”, installed at Primera Company Headquarters, Plano, Texas

PAUL CAPONIGRO
“I continue to commune with and study the potential for beauty in nature and my surroundings. Over the past 10 years I have emphasized making still lifes of natural objects I have collected over time. Using only natural light, I arrange the shells, stones, and leaves by the window and watch the quality of light as it changes during the day. I still use sheet film and enjoy the darkroom process, the transformations taking place.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
solo show, Andrew Smith Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, through April 2014
Bruce Davidson and Paul Caponigro: Two American Photographers in Britain and Ireland, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, June 22–September 14, 2014

Moth in Wood Bowl, 2012, gelatin silver print, 9.75” x 10”

DAVID DEWEY
“Marshall Point Light is one of many iconic coastal Maine landmarks that I painted 25 to 30 years ago. My interest then was in how they were transformed by brilliant sunlight. Now, my interest lies in how they are emotionally impacted by light. Painting is a continuation of ideas developed over time that evolve in directions that add greater insight, depth, and significance.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
solo show, Caldbeck Gallery, Rockland, summer 2014
solo show, Bernarducci Meisel Gallery, New York, 2015

Marshall Point Series #3, 2013, watercolor, 7.25” x 12”

DEWITT HARDY
“Lately, I have been working on pieces that include reflected images. It doubles the complexity of the thing and it’s hard work. Still, don’t take anything seriously; one thinks it’s twice as good but it probably isn’t.”

Perkins Cove and Riverside Annex, 2013, watercolor, 9” x 9.5”

KEN GREENLEAF
“At this point in my life my goal is to induce a deep level of engagement with something other than your own internal dialog. Not thinking of me as much as thinking with me, for just a fragment of time. My newest pieces combine discrete panels that hang away from the wall, like colored objects floating there in company with their neighbors. I still think like a sculptor, but the color relationships are very important.”

UPCOMING SHOW:
solo show, Berry Campbell, New York, fall 2014

1-Polarity, 2013, acrylic on canvas on shaped support, 30” x 32”

LOIS DODD
“I don’t make huge breaks in my work, just definite shifts that are unplanned. Some of my current paintings of plants are more like drawings. I look up close at a particular one, maybe not even an entire plant, and focus on its configuration, essentially creating portraits. After the Queen Anne’s lace flowers, it has a totally different shape and structure with nothing left but its bones.”

UPCOMING SHOW:
solo show, Caldbeck Gallery, Rockland, summer 2014

Dried Queen Anne’s Lace, 2013, oil on linen, 58” x 20”; © Lois Dodd, courtesy Alexandre Gallery, New York

 MAGGIE FOSKETT
“At 94, I have gone back to straight photography and am documenting the life cycle of a zebra longwing from microscopic egg and ravenous caterpillar to chrysalis. A male longwing senses when a chrysalis holds a fully developed female, and the moment she emerges, mating begins. The cycle renews, and butterflies are born. Photography simply reflects an engaged curiosity, whether expressed freely through imagination or stimulated by reality.   

Zebra Longwings Mating, 2013, digital photograph, 5” x 7” and 15” x 19” 

MARY ARO
“This past summer, I made some watercolors of smallish rocks from our gravel beach, thinking of the scientific charts I often admire. Instead of man-made debris, the subject of my earlier landscapes of the local transfer station, I now paint nature’s debris—sticks, twigs, rotting apples, and the miscellaneous debris washed up on the shores of Eggemoggin Reach. The longer I work, the more amazed I am by the textures and colors. Drawing teaches us to see and to feel a kinship with nature.”  

UPCOMING SHOW:
Small Paintings: Mary Aro, Jeff Loxterkamp, Adele Ursone, Turtle Gallery, Deer Isle, September 2014

Fallen Apples, 2013–14, watercolor, 18” x 24”

 ALISON HILDRETH
“I am finishing a group of large 80” x 36” drawings on very thin Kitakata paper. The format allows for a continuous map of linked ideas reflecting both a personal journal and a cartography of historical sites, almost erased but containing a seed of a new era. I want to expand the materials I’m using by combining oil paint, prints, and drawings, which will affect the work in ways I can’t predict, but eventually it will explain itself.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Sea Smoke, Lewis Gallery, Portland Public Library, May 2014
solo show, June Fitzpatrick Gallery, fall 2014
Maine Northern Skies—In a Clear Light, L.C. Bates Museum, Hinckley, May–October 2014

Emerging Cartographies #10 (detail), 2013, graphite, ink, and collage on Kitakata paper, 80” x 38”

KATHERINE BRADFORD
“For Love Speaks I first painted the kiss as part of a series of two heads kissing. Then I had the couple kneeling to include more color along the bottom edge. Lastly, I dipped my brush in three different paint pots and framed the couple in colorful thought bubbles emanating from all parts of their bodies. Like many of my paintings this one is celebratory, with the color providing the warmth.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Katherine Bradford and the Age of Exploration, Sarah Moody Gallery of Art, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, March 31–May 9, 2014
Sea Smoke, Lewis Gallery, Portland Public Library, Portland, May 2–June 6, 2014
Gallery Artists, Edward Thorp Gallery, New York, June 15–August 4, 2014
Katherine Bernhardt, Katherine Bradford, and Rose Wylie, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, Indiana, June 15–August 15, 2014
Brooklyn Bridge, George Lawson Gallery, San Francisco, June 29–August 30, 2014

Love Speaks, 2013, oil on canvas, 12” x 9”

KATE BECK
“My focus is painting. I am discovering a return to color that was unexpected but feels very right. My lines have softened and flattened out, and I am embracing a gestural essence much more directly, which brings renewed and gratifying meaning to the surface. The axis of space between the pictorial and the architectural presence of the physical surface continues to pull me in. There is a longing to uncover more of this in the new work.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Site Pavilion, Brito.Rodriguez Arquitectura, Lisbon, Portugal, 2014 
Kate Beck: New Paintings, MastersProjects, New York, fall 2014
group show, ICON Contemporary Art, Brunswick, summer 2014
Kate Beck, Eric Cruikshank, Cecilia Vissers, Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2015

DoveTide (detail), 2013, triptych, oil on aluminum panels, 108” x 96” overall

JOHN BISBEE
“For the last 28 years I have been working exclusively with nails, trying to excavate the infinite in the mundane. It is my obsession to give the nail a vibrant life that its utility never dreamt of.”  

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Second Nature, The Curator Gallery, New York, through April 16, 2014
John Bisbee: New Blooms, Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont, through May 26, 2014  

Thicket, 2014, unbroken 12” spikes, forged and hammered, 3’ x 6’

ALAN BRAY
“I seem to be turning over the same soil, trying to get closer to the bones of things. These days, you almost hate to say you’re a landscape painter and yet it suddenly seems more important than ever to achieve some kind of concord between people and their perception of the natural world. I keep looking for those connections, manifesting them in ways that call out to people.”

UPCOMING SHOW:
Alan Bray: New Paintings, Garvey Simon Art Access, New York, April 30–May 31, 2014

Windbreak, 2013, casein on panel, 18” x 24”

DUANE PALUSKA
“Euclid has been helping me with formal issues lately. I’m currently making wall-based, shaped panels that are aggregates of squares and equal-sided right triangles. By choosing which forms to define and which to conceal within the boundaries of each piece, I ask viewers to think about the virtually infinite possibilities of these simple shapes and to make their own reality.”

Bach, 2013, acrylic and canvas on wood, 24” x 26”

DAVID ESTEY
“I’m doing total improvisations in acrylic on Yupo, a synthetic paper. Narrative references sometimes emerge but are subordinate to the aesthetic whole, felt viscerally in the heart and soul. This is sublimely liberating, a serious but playful journey in search of that rare surprise result, when I can say, ‘Wow, look at that!’”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Paper, Åarhus Gallery, Belfast, April 2014
Expressions, Harlow Gallery, Hallowell, August 2014

In the Pink, 2013, acrylic and graphite on Yupo, 18” x 24”

FRANCES HODSDON
“For many years, I’d sit outside in the summer with an etching plate and draw these common plastic chairs. Similarly, in recent months I have been drawing pieces of wood bark while sitting in the living room. These drawings are very detailed, life-size renditions of the bark’s textures, which I copy onto transparencies, transfer to a solar plate etching, and then combine with lithographs of abstract washes, printed from a polyester plate called pronto.”

Roundish Strange, 2013, gray pronto lithography plate and black solar plate etching, 7.5” x 7.5”  

HENRY ISAACS
“Though my work remains attached to the Maine and Vermont landscape, I’m also working on images of Africa and Europe. Every new picture is the most interesting of my life until I finish it. Then I must re-try an idea that hadn’t grown fully in the previous work. I start painting onsite, but I also enjoy the manipulation occurring in the studio where the world opens and I get closer to the spirit felt while standing along a shore, or on the edge of a meadow.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Henry Isaacs and Craig Mooney, West Branch Gallery, Stowe, Vermont, June 2014
Henry Isaacs: Monhegan at 400, Gleason Fine Art, Boothbay Harbor, June 2014
Henry Isaacs: Boats and Harbors, Gleason Fine Art, Boothbay Harbor, July 2014
Henry Isaacs: Small Considerations, Islesford Dock Gallery, Islesford, July 2014                        
Henry Isaacs: New Work, Maine Art Paintings and Sculpture, Kennebunkport, August 2014   
Mount Mansfield from Jeffersonville, 2014, oil on canvas, 30” x 40”

JOHN WISSEMANN
“A few years ago, I was encouraged to experiment with printmaking, which was a good match as I had been using stencils created from drawings of gardens and figures in Japanese woodcuts. In my current series, Working Waterfront, many shapes and colors are of the Rockland harbor, but they also include Friendship, Belfast, Boothbay, and Bath. I start these as monoprints then work over them extensively with colored pencil.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
solo show, Gold/Smith Gallery, Boothbay Harbor, 2015
solo show, Camden Public Library, Camden, 2015 

Rigging in Fog, 2013, monoprint and colored pencil, 20” x 24”

ERIC HOPKINS
“I’m revisiting conceptual drawings of my work in molten glass from the late 1970s and ’80s and have started to integrate my atmospheric and aerial landscape imagery with strong color on large painted wood cutout shapes. This latest work is inspired by early memories of wood assemblages by Louise Nevelson and Blackie [Bernard] Langlais.”  

UPCOMING SHOWS:
solo show, Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, August 2014
Eric Hopkins: Shells, Fish, and Shellfish, Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, summer 2014

Atmospheric Ellipsoid #2 (study for large wood cutout), 2013, watercolor, gouache, and crayon on paper, 11” x 30”

MICHAEL KOLSTER
“I have started to pair photographs taken by two different cameras set slightly apart, which I then print with the left and right images transposed. When viewed with crossed eyes and after some practice, the images converge into a stereoscopic representation of the scene. This viewing experience reminds us how the interpretation of all images involves a set of acquired skills gleaned from perceptual experience and social interaction.”

UPCOMING SHOW:
solo show, PhoPa Gallery, Portland, September 17–October 25, 2014

Durham River Park (leaves on river), Androscoggin River, Maine, 2013, archival pigment print, 10” x 20”

DENNIS PINETTE
“The industrial landscape resonates with monumental optimism, an endlessly repeating cycle of invention and decay. The elements at the core of my work have remained essentially the same for 40 years—fire, water, earth, and sky, being here temporarily. I walk in a dream that I paint with fragments embedded in genetic memory. The label “realism” has no meaning. A painting is always fiction; the question is, do you believe the story?”

UPCOMING SHOW:
Caldbeck Gallery, Rockland, summer 2014
Amoskeag Dream, 2013, oil on panel, 11” x 17”   

GAIL SPAIEN
“I am painting still lifes of flowers, symbols of sentimentality, passion, and longing. Painting seems particularly relevant at this time in my life. It is a traditional act, ordinary, direct, and magical. It reflects history and holds the doubt and perseverance of the creative process. My overarching theme is the intersection of nature and culture, having interpreted nature from different perspectives—as observed specimen, aesthetic concept, metaphor for social commentary, and representation of inner experience.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
New Acquisitions, University of New England Art Gallery, Portland, through June 15, 2014 
Dozier Bell and Gail Spaien: New Work, Aucocisco Galleries, Portland, April 8–26, 2014

Still Life 2, 2014, acrylic on linen, 34” x 30” 

MARK WETHLI
“Three years ago I took some paintings on paper that weren’t working for me, cut them into strips, and wove them back together. I liked the textured grid this created and began painting over them. Their woven surface provides an unlikely support for geometric painting, but one that allows for a more idiosyncratic, handmade object. Their vernacular color and irregular perfection provoke an uncertain relationship between the ideal and the real, life and art.” 

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Second Nature, The Curator Gallery, New York, through April 19, 2014
solo show, The Painting Center, New York, through April 19, 2014
Mark Wethli and Douglas Witmer, ICON Contemporary Art, Brunswick, May 31–June 28, 2014

Bridge, 2013, Flashe acrylic on woven Jaipur paper, 6” x 6” 

ALAN MAGEE
“After the school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, I wrote a music video fusing my visual art with a song to express both sadness over that tragedy and vexation over the absence of remorse within the gun-advocacy community. Newly completed paintings include tributes to close friends who died that summer. I continue with my series of low-relief sculptures, To Posterity.”

School Zone, 2013, video still from the music video “Gun Shop”; © 2013 Alan Magee

JOHN MOORE
“Floaters was painted in my Belfast studio last summer. The idea is looking at and looking through; the subject matter is based on locations in or around my winter studio in Philadelphia. I suppose that working with Maine material in Philadelphia, and Philadelphia material in Maine, may seem odd, but distancing allows for other ideas and feelings than just describing facts. As William Wordsworth said, poetry comes ‘from emotion recollected in tranquility.’”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
solo show, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, fall 2014 
The Annual: 2014, National Academy, New York, June 2014
solo show, Hirschl and Adler, New York, fall 2015

Floaters, 2013, oil on canvas, 54” x 50”

NANCY WISSEMANN-WIDRIG
“Originally, coming to Maine coincided with a change in my work from painterly abstraction to painterly realism, or maybe it was caused by it. I was fascinated with my surroundings, which often included water. So the next step was close examination of the water, its depth, surface, reflections, and underwater vegetation. No longer able to negotiate rough terrain, I began creating ‘painted collages’ of ideas from sketches and memories.”

Childsplay II, 2013, oil on canvas, 40” x 30”

JOCELYN LEE
“I’m working on a new monograph, Women and Girls, which includes over 100 portraits made over 25 years. It aims to expand notions of physical beauty to include all ages and body types, and to allude to the complex internal lives of women. Recently, I’ve begun to work in video, expanding the photographic portrait to include longer shutter times, from split-second captures to several minutes long, again with an emphasis on the internal lives of the sitters.”

Pearl behind Glass, 2013, archival pigment print, 50” x 40”

ROSE MARASCO
“In late 2009 I began photographing Manhattan with a wooden pinhole camera and color negative film. It is a new direction for me that developed out of my plan to shoot a black-and-white image of the Brooklyn Bridge for one of my Silhouettes, using the pinhole technique. However, I was completely overjoyed with the color negative images and have since followed this direction.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Rose Marasco: New York City Pinhole Photographs, Meredith Ward Fine Art, New York, through May 3, 2014
Rose Marasco: Index, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, 2015

Columbus Circle, 2013, archival pigment print, 30” x 24” 

ED NADEAU
“My newest paintings are of bridges. I believe that they are a deepening of my commitment to my longstanding exploration of Maine-related subject matter and at the same time represent a new direction. They portray narrative, landscape, and the decaying infrastructure of America. They are in many ways an amalgam of the subject matter that I have explored as an artist for many years.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Acadie Mythique, traveling exhibition, various venues throughout the U.S. and Canada, 
June 2014–November 2015
Art Meets Science: Imagining Possibilities, Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, Salisbury Cove, July 1–September 30, 2014 two-person show, Courthouse Gallery Fine Art, Ellsworth, August 20–September 14, 2014

Night Bridge, Heading Home, 2013, oil on canvas, 44.25” x 53.75”

WARREN SEELIG
“In my work the tangible object has become secondary to the reflection of light, with shadow becoming another substance. The resulting atmospheres or fields of reality and illusion are accentuated by mesmerizing expanses of randomly accumulated shadows. These Shadowfields are architectural/textile hybrids, complex cellular arrays with no clear beginning or end, implying movement toward infinite space.”

SELECTED UPCOMING SHOWS:
Contemporary American Work in Fiber, Art in Embassies, American
Consulate General, Jerusalem, through September 2015
Raab Lecture 20th Anniversary Exhibition, Schick Art Gallery, Skidmore
College, Saratoga Springs, New York, October–December 2014
250th Anniversary Exhibition, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, November 2014 
Innovators and Legends: Generations in Textiles and Fibers, traveling exhibition organized by the Muskegon Museum of Art: University Art Museum, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, January 24–April 11, 2014; Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, May 24–September 7, 2014

Shadowfield/Crystal, 2013, silver-brazed stainless steel and Lucite balls, 24” x 24” x 6”

BARBARA SULLIVAN 
“Historically, fresco was used to paint illusionist images on flat architectural surfaces. I instead made three-dimensional objects that are effigies of real things; I distort and flatten both the forms and the painted surfaces. My current work, however, has evolved from large drawings to which I attached frescoes. I now juxtapose the imagery of the fresco painting with its shape.” 

UPCOMING SHOW:
Barbara Sullivan: Showroom, a Furniture Design Display, Caldbeck Gallery, Rockland, summer 2014 

Landscape Chair, 2013, shaped fresco, 48” x 32” x 6”

BRITA HOLMQUIST
“In 2013 I was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, which took most of the strength in my legs and right arm. I still tried to do some work with oil pastels, at first pretty pathetically, but as I regained my strength, I drew my garden, beach, and dog. They were familiar and comforting to me as I staggered about. There were no far horizons of bay water and islands, instead small vignettes enclosed by walls and fence.”

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Cynthia Winings Gallery, Blue Hill, summer 2014
Camden Falls Gallery, Camden, summer 2014
solo show, Elizabeth Moss Galleries, Falmouth, November 2014

Black Shadows, 2013, oil pastel, 15” x 11” 

EMERGING ARTISTS

CASSIE JONES
“My newest work, which is made by adhering colored sand to paper, canvas, or panel, explores my interest in representations of the natural world, ranging from pattern design to camouflage to scientific illustration. While various sources feed the work, the working process itself is very intuitive and left open to chance and discovery. When I have painted myself into a corner, the best ideas emerge as I find my way out.”

“Cassie has caught a lot of attention already, and the clarity, creative energy, unbounded imagination, and joy of this young artist’s work promise her a bright future.”  -Duane Paluska

UPCOMING SHOW:
Second Nature, The Curator Gallery, New York, through April 16, 2014

DORETTE AMELL
“I’m drawn to Big Ideas such as the nature of divinity and resurrection. I regularly reference art history, myths, symbols, and popular culture. I find a sense of humor and the divine are not mutually exclusive. Contrasting imagery is also useful when considering the sense of awe and inadequacy one can experience on this side of eternity.”  

“Dorette’s work has a wonderful and rare sense of humor, balanced with a grasp of history and a respect for the craft of painting. Her work is endlessly inventive and full of surprises, and her seemingly tireless productivity is scary.”  -Alan Bray

JONATHAN MESS
“I’m making reclaimed ceramic sculptures and wall slabs in a studio at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, exposed to the elements and working rough and dirty. Consciousness of material choices and reclamation of materials have been constant motivations since I was a teen. I’m using cardboard boxes as molds, pursuing expressive forms by manipulating them to remove the boxiness but keeping some evidence like corrugation and ripped edges to create interesting surfaces.”

“Jonathan’s work announces his exploratory attack of materials, his fine sense of design and discovery. Great energy.”  -Harold Garde

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Transformation 9: Contemporary Works in Clay, The Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder’s Prize, Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 25–August 23, 2014
The Futures, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Vessels Gallery, Boston, April 4–May 18, 2014

TOM JESSEN
“I’ve been working on monochromatic constructions of panels that are connected into often relatively simple shapes. I think a lot about perception, context, and language, and am attracted to immediate visual experiences. I’m excited not only by this particular line of inquiry arising from making these constructions, but also where this might take me—I finish one thing and it suggests 10 more.”

“I like him both as a thoughtful and artful person and because I relate to his work. I first saw his installation at the Emery Community Arts Center at the University of Maine at Farmington. He not only made his abstract work site-specific but literally used building materials similar to the materials in the building, making for a seamless installation!”  -Barbara Sullivan

UPCOMING SHOW:
Constructions, Arkell Museum, Canajoharie, New York, April 4–July 11, 2014

ELIZABETH ATTERBURY
“I’m working on small wooden sculptures as models for much larger pieces that play with forms arranged as stacked totems and modular reliefs. I am making molds of some of these pieces to cast in plaster, cement, clay, and, eventually, bronze. This is a new direction for me, as I am a photographer, but the trajectory feels logical. In my photographs of studio constructions, which build on my interest in the visual structures of display, the sculptures I have made are temporary, made specifically for the camera. Now, I have to consider how to make things in the round.”

“Elizabeth’s work is full of surprise and challenge. I feel a kinship with her focus on immediate and handmade abstractions (like cut paper and handmade objects). I trust inherently the sincerity of her inquiry, and learn to broaden the range of my own process from her amazing example.”  -Anna Hepler

UPCOMING SHOW:
Currents 7: Elizabeth Atterbury, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, January–May 2015

EMILIE BLUM
“I am currently working on a music video, ‘Icing,’ to the Fleet Foxes song, ‘Tiger Mountain Peasant Song.’ It is part of a larger body of recent work that explores the magical elements of everyday activities. These surrealist music videos incorporate dance, painting, and sculpture—I love the way these disciplines cross-pollinate. I hope to create work that conjures vivid human emotion and behavior.”

“Emilie is a visionary. She stitches together elements of sculpture, performance, and storytelling into exquisitely crafted videos. Her pieces are haunting, and no matter how many times I view them, they always offer fresh secrets.”  -John Bisbee

UPCOMING SHOW:
Faculty Show, Nesto Gallery, Milton Academy, Milton, Massachusetts, May 2014

NICHOLAS BRENNAN
“I’m currently in postproduction on a feature-length documentary about a popular Cuban heavy metal band. I’ve traveled to Havana for the past five years collaborating with young Cuban artists while following the band’s story. This unexpected bridge between the U.S. and Cuba has shown me the real power of art to bring people together. My previous film, A Marine’s Guide to Fishing, was shot in Maine and featured a young disabled veteran who, through his performance, was able to cope with his post-traumatic stress.”

“Nick exhibits a sensitivity of both time and humanity within the context of our contemporary, lived world. I relate this to my own sensibilities within the intimacy of drawing, where line actualizes as a point in motion through time. There seems to be a parallel vision here.”  -Kate Beck

 ANDA DUBINSKIS
“My previous work was primarily figurative; paintings which emphasized line, gesture, and psychological states. I also painted small gouaches of flat foliate motifs with meticulously rendered insects, which led to the larger-scaled, evocative charcoal pieces. I’m thinking about atmospheric ideas now—sooty, foggy edges sidling up against crisply delineated shapes. Things slip in and out of focus, suggest a pattern, break out of it, and then crystallize into something new.”

“She is a terrific painter who has been coming to Maine since the 1970s, but she has pretty much stayed under the radar when working here in Searsmont. Her superb skills are evident in her recent large-scale and very dramatic charcoals.”  -John Moore

UPCOMING SHOW:

Anda Dubinskis and Anne Minich, ICON Contemporary Art, Brunswick, April 26–May 24, 2014

SUSAN CAMP
“I am currently etching and patinating copper plates. Though this is a departure from my sculptural, mold-shaped gourds, this imagery continues to celebrate natural forms and involves plants that I cultivate and gather. These delicate pieces offer an intimate glimpse of organic materials in various states of growth and decay; I see them as quiet offerings, encouraging reflection about our complex relationships with other species.”

“Combining the use of ephemeral natural objects (such as small ferns and tomatillos), warm patinas, and a great sense of pattern, Susan’s pieces speak of the fragility of life. Like newly found fossils, they give the viewer pause to ponder the passage of time.”  -Ed Nadeau

UPCOMING SHOW:
group show, Amos Eno Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, June 25–July 19, 2014

SHANNON RANKIN
“I am always exploring new directions while simultaneously deepening my commitment to my map works. Right now I have abandoned some of my self-imposed rules and follow a more intuitive approach, inviting more chaos and unpredictability into my work. I am also creating work that resonates on an emotional level, that feels more ‘painterly,’ ephemeral, and free. However, my process is cyclical, so I’m bound to return to more structure and geometry.”

“I love Shannon’s work because it unites extremes of consciousness simultaneously—the global and the intimate, the factual and the fanciful. She manipulates ‘known’ geography by reconfiguring maps into new patterns and constellations.”  -Jocelyn Lee

UPCOMING SHOW:
The Portland Show, Greenhut Galleries, Portland, April 3–26, 2014

 JEFF LOXTERKAMP
“I am currently working on a series of wallet-size oil paintings. My daughter gave me a set of these canvases for my birthday. These ‘micro-paintings’ are an interesting, new challenge. I paint them exactly the same way I paint my larger oil paintings, albeit with tiny brushes. Alternating the sizes keeps me sane.”

“Jeff believes in what he is doing; he is not copying other artists, but is true to himself as an artist, despite the difficulties. I like his technique, the way he applies the oil paint.”  -Mary Aro

UPCOMING SHOW:
group show, Turtle Gallery, Deer Isle, September 2014

PAUL RICKERT
“I’ve always looked to Stonington as a quintessential Maine fishing village that combines raw beauty with the vitality of a working waterfront. The town’s integrity has attracted me to record the various aspects of this Maine experience, which I view through the quality of light changing through the seasons and the weather.”

“Paul’s paintings are appealing for the way they represent place and timeless moments in Maine’s coastal landscape through his extraordinary natural painting ability and eye for color. I have always found his watercolors and oils to be deeply satisfying, lasting, and often breathtaking.”  -David Dewey

UPCOMING SHOW:
Paul Rickert and Jon Imber, gWatson Gallery, Stonington, August 2014

JEFF EPSTEIN
“Right now my work is focused on my surroundings in Cushing. I’ve always been interested in using elements from both the natural and man-made worlds. Where they overlap and coexist is of particular interest, with the built-in contrasts and eventual balance that become a painting. I don’t include people, but I like the narrative implied by the evidence of human activity. Every time I move my garden hose, I’m presented with a new composition to consider.”

“Jeff and I both paint from observation, but his selection of subjects is very individualistic. I also like that he scratches into his paint a lot; it’s very much a part of the way it works for him.”  -Lois Dodd

UPCOMING SHOW:
group show, Caldbeck Gallery, Rockland, summer 2014

ALINA GALLO
“My miniature work embraces East-West art historical cross-currents to emphasize cultural exchange as a long-standing historical condition. Sixteenth-century miniatures’ flattened and atemporal atmosphere serves well to depict the mélange of our contemporary world and unify seemingly disparate realities. Cart Blunch depicts an ancient tale of crows burning sleeping owls combined with the contemporary story of Pakistani girls trafficked to dance and more for the migrant male labor community in Dubai. My vibrantly colored “blast” murals replicate the remnants of mortar shell explosions from the Syrian civil war and become contemplative bridges to original sites of violence.”

“Alina is a talented artist who engages in rigorous research. Working in the format of Persian miniatures but subverting the content to reflect the suffering and conflict in the Middle East, her work challenges the viewer and asks difficult questions.”  -Alison Hildreth

UPCOMING SHOW:
Aleppo 9-2012 (for Noura), 2014, site-specific mural as part of Piece Work: 2013 Portland Museum of Art Biennial, Portland, through spring 2014 

MARK KELLY
“I am working on three bodies of work: representational drawings, experimental fireworks drawings, and a combination of the two—representational drawings with gunpowder and other unpredictable materials. Much like a tree sends branches up for light while sending roots down for water, these seemingly different directions all feed the same source, so I can continue to grow.”

“Mark has experimented with burned gunpowder, used tea bags, rubber subway spacers, blood and oil, and shaved charcoal to make unique and remarkably well-designed images that often have an important social message. I am attracted to everything he does.”  -David Estey

UPCOMING SHOW:
year-round show participation, Åarhus Gallery, Belfast

 J.T. GIBSON
“I am currently executing a new series I call RACK, which is a refinement of an earlier group of pieces on a larger scale. I explore cultural symbols and motifs to create work that inhabits the gray area between abstraction and purpose. The objects are self-sufficient and rely on a singular form, without adornment, to convey their power. They are a ‘Given,’ a reality.”

“J.T. Gibson understands the physical, visual, technical, and visceral issues of sculpture far better than most people I know. Each piece has its own distinct and well-articulated identity, and it stays with you.”  -Ken Greenleaf

UPCOMING SHOWS:
A Celebration of Art and Land, Maine Audubon, Falmouth, May 30–September 30, 2014
Pollinators, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, Boothbay, June 1–September 30, 2014
Pop-Up Art Show, Hearstudios, Camden, summer 2014
group show, Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells, summer 2014

NANCY GLASSMAN
“All my life and work experience confirm my main mission in painting. When what I see gets me, I’ve learned to accept the call to action. Vibrating in a dance with the scene that informs my brush and guides my choices, I pick up on the movement of clouds and wind, the revelation of colors, the patterns of plant growth. I paint to apprehend the Life Force, and that connection heals me every time. I paint to see what matters and hope it communicates.”

“Nancy has not had the recognition her work merits. I think her work is becoming more and more beautiful, and I have always admired what she does with complicated images.”  -Nancy Wissemann-Widrig

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Maine Northern Skies—In a Clear Light, L.C. Bates Museum, Hinckley, May–October 2014
group show, Caldbeck Gallery, Rockland, summer 2014

ANNA MIKUŠKOVÁ
“I am studying traditional black-and-white film photography and silver gelatin printing techniques. While old for many, film is a new medium for me, which enables me to explore nature more closely while sharpening my monochrome vision. The contemplative darkroom process and the intimate connection with the final print correspond to my need for awareness and stillness while observing the beauty and serenity of the Maine landscape.”

“She shares with me the love of landscape and has an intuitive feel for composing within the picture frame. Her selections are most often chosen for the proportions of tree, stone, or land masses rather than pitting one form against another in the name of composition.”  -Paul Caponigro

NI RONG
“Growing up in a Qing dynasty courtyard in Beijing, and having lived in the United States for the past 28 years, my series In America—Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter is a personal project started in 2012 that investigates Asian-American identity through self-portraiture. My search for an emotional home and a sense of belonging has taken me on a rich, spiritual journey and allowed me to grow as a person and artist.”

“Ni has rapidly gained masterful technical skill and is refining her voice with self-portraits that explore her dual identity as Chinese and American. In other work, her thirst for invention brings about evocative photos that combine play with strong aesthetics.”  -Connie Hayes

“Ni’s work combines wit, playfulness, and an innate sense of timeless order that both entertains and instructs.”  -Scott Davis

SHIRAH NEUMANN
“La Bayadére was inspired by the architecture and ornamentation of a theater, color squares by Johannes Itten, and the Parco dei Mostri in Bomarzo, Italy. I think of it as a mirage on a vast sea; it is something new but also full of memories and longing, which might appear to someone who has been looking into an abyss. My imagery can be both repetitive and completely new, so there is rhythm, continuum, and also evolution.”

“I like Shirah’s work because of her touch. She has a relaxed, comfortable relationship with her brush and her colors. The tone of her work is one of nocturnal mystery; a visit to an unnamed place with quiet, sure footsteps.”  -Katherine Bradford

UPCOMING SHOWS:
The Portland Show, Greenhut Galleries, Portland, April 3–26, 2014
Shirah Neumann: Small Visions, Falmouth Museums on the Green, Falmouth and Woods Hole, Massachusetts, May 10–June 21, 2014

JESSE GILLESPIE
“I create reliefs using found objects. While my work evolves, certain fundamentals reappear, as I recently discovered comparing a drawing of a skeleton I made in high school with a relief of the same subject made 15 years later. The skeleton’s character remained the same, and I found affirmation in this continuity. One new goal I have is to figure out how to make larger pieces, which is challenging given some of my laborious techniques.”

“I have admired Jesse’s work since he was in high school; his drawings showed extraordinary promise. His imaginative and elegant sculpture is a seamless blend of the abstract and the recognizable. It is captivating and new.”  -Alan Magee

UPCOMING SHOW:
Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, summer 2015

JAAP EDUARD HELDER
“My work has developed in the past years to a deeper, richer palette, and a more intense translation of my experience of living on the Maine coast. The paintings are glimpses and reflections of my daily impressions. I hope to achieve some transformation or transcendence, a sense of both the known and the unknown at the same moment. An alchemical process turning paint and brushstrokes into stories without words.”

“His paintings hold a tight rhythm between a passion for paint and an instinct to tell a story.”  -Dennis Pinette

UPCOMING SHOW:
solo show, Saccarappa Art Collective, Westbrook, April 16–May 24, 2014

DELPHINE SHERIN
“My early abstract work aimed at creating emotional impact through the exploration of the parallel between the relationship of visual elements and the dynamics of social space. My current work uses figurative imagery and ideas that have metaphorical or emotional value. The work reflects the effect these images have on me, and I plan to expand this into three dimensions in the future.”  

“I have known Delphine for a long time and seen her work change over time. Her work is very personal.”  -Frances Hodsdon

PREETI KINHA
“I’m interested in exploring how different things look when they’ve been photographed by a camera compared to how things would appear to our eyes if we were present at the moment of capture. I’m exploiting that difference by using large depths of field and unexpected scale changes to create pictures that look like two or more photos were layered in Photoshop (they aren’t), with things both near and far in focus (something our eyes are incapable of).”

“Preeti is fearless and voraciously curious. Her photographs emphasize highly descriptive, intuitive, and ordered alignments of textures, colors, and shapes that suggest the possibility of meaning from encounters with places and people during her daily routines.”  -Michael Kolster

LINCOLN PERRY
“I’m currently working on a half-life-size bronze sculpture commission and two 10-foot-high paintings set at Key West Fantasy Fest and in the red light district of Amsterdam, and plan paintings that evoke the myth of Diana and Actaeon set in the White Mountains. All my work continues my ambition to revivify narrative painting for our time.”

“Lincoln Perry is a serious, intelligent guy. He makes work that is complex in form, space, and color. I enjoy encountering it whenever I do encounter it.”  -DeWitt Hardy

MEGHAN BRADY
“I am in a slightly chaotic place, as I just had a second baby; therefore at the moment my studio is my dining room table. I’m working on some drawings that pick up where last year’s paintings left off, and plan eventually to turn them into woodcuts. The chaos is good for me, I believe, because it is a rich and intense time and I know some evolution has to come from that.”

“The space and surface in Meghan’s paintings are refreshingly unpredictable and in a constant state of flux. Her shapes seem to jostle one another in an ongoing process of spatial negotiation, like figures adjusting to one another’s movements in a crowd, or ideas shifting from one thought to the next.”  -Mark Wethli

UPCOMING SHOW:
Second Nature, The Curator Gallery, New York, through April 16, 2014

SHOSHANNAH WHITE
“I’m in the middle of a series which continues my practice of looking at the psychological undercurrents that run through our daily experience. The work is an exploration of our connection to the sea, the mystery below surface, and the unknowns of climate change. Until now I’ve been working from shore and boats but am planning to learn how to scuba dive, so it’s possible I’ll be taking this series under water soon.”

“The particular point of view Shoshannah applies to her subjects makes no distinction between the abstracted marks of moonbeams on water, the fronds of a plant, or a person’s face. Her approach makes the emotive power of the work seem impersonal and lodged within the nature of the subject itself rather than the eye of the artist.”  -Dozier Bell

UPCOMING SHOW:
Shoshannah White: Undercurrent, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, May 24–July 6, 2014
Install, Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells, summer 2014

GRETA AULT VAN CAMPEN
“I’m creating work specific to each place where I have upcoming shows. For the one in Rockland, I’ve been painting from photographs taken around our home in Woolwich and other areas of Maine throughout the year. I continue to figure out new ways to depict the world in a hard-edge style. Having a larger studio has allowed me to increase my scale, and I plan to incorporate more people and animals in my new work.”

“The energy Greta brings to her work is notable. She has the eye and the skill that change landscape into something more, into a contemporary vision dominated by a graphic approach as well as the artist’s hand. Her travels bring a most unusual new vision to the Maine land and seascape.”  -Brita Holmquist

UPCOMING SHOWS:
solo show, Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, May 2014
solo show, Firecat Projects, Chicago, May 30–June 2014
solo show, Kimball Art Center, Park City, Utah, July 25–September 21, 2014 

LISA PIXLEY
“I recently finished an apprenticeship with master letterpress printer David Wolfe and received a book on Japanese woodblock prints, so I was eager to try out this medium. In contrast to my drawings and etchings, which are dark, rich, and romantic, this new series is bright, clear, and succinct. I now have to squeeze so much information into so little color and line that I discovered a poetry in frugality. I’m still interested in the same ideas (narrative, pattern, archetypes, and form), but the images appear very clearly in my mind.”

“I like her work as an artist and her efforts to create a community of collaborative artists at the Pickwick Independent Press.”  -Charlie Hewitt

CALEB CHARLAND
“To understand the world and to profit from it one must interact with it, one must experiment. My practice combines scientific curiosity with a constructive approach to making pictures. I utilize everyday objects and fundamental forces to illustrate experiences of wonder. These particular images expand upon a classic grade-school science project, the potato battery, and function as micro-utopias by suggesting the endless possibilities of alternative and sustainable energy production.”

“Caleb can transform taken-for-granted physics into an explosion of light.”  -Maggie Foskett

UPCOMING SHOW:
solo show, Johansson Projects, Oakland, California, fall 2014

LILIANA STEWART
“I’m currently drawing figures and experimenting with using more colors. I usually sketch with pencil and then add line art with a pen. I draw from observation to improve the quality of my work, and there is usually a narrative or relationship between the characters, as it is uninspiring to me to create work without those elements. I am also sometimes inspired by music and writing.”

“Liliana is 14 years old, and for me a truly emerging artist. I am simply struck by her desire to draw, which comes from a genuine place of expression, her observation skills, ability to capture gesture, and keen imagination. Liliana has a visual intelligence that is all too often ignored in our culture and in our schools.”  -Rose Marasco

UPCOMING SHOW:
Annual Art Show, Monmouth Academy, Monmouth, late May 2014

JOHN VANDER
“I paint and draw to invent or discover a form that is a metaphor for experience I can’t get at any other way. My immediate surroundings, combined with memory and fantasy, are my starting points. Although many of my paintings have no instantly recognizable imagery, I don’t think of them as abstract. I use color to create light, atmosphere, and a sense of place and season.”

“I like John’s work because it is almost the complete opposite of my own. I would describe his paintings as often very colorful, lyrical abstractions.”  
-John Wissemann

UPCOMING SHOW:
solo show, Gold/Smith Gallery, Boothbay Harbor, September 6–October 15, 2014 

ANDREW WHITE
“I spent many years traveling between Maine and Antarctica. As a contractor for the U.S. Antarctic Program I learned about both the perils we face and the wonder we can perceive through science. My work is investigative, an impractical exercise in trial by error. Material choices and methods of work reflect the tradesmen from whom I learned. My goal is to be objective with myself and create equipment and instrumentation that informs my sense of place and self.”

“Andy is a visual and conceptual explorer—a fabricator of ideas with many materials in many contexts. He’s a man of action, a man of passion, living the creative spirit in everything he does.”  -Eric Hopkins

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Place, Time, Conditions, Asymmetrick Arts, Rockland, summer 2014
Gravity, Åarhus Gallery, Belfast, fall 2014

MAGGIE CASEY
“I am currently working in a variety of ways that use both systems and chance to render characteristics of landscape. Some examples of materials and process that I am using are cord and hand netting, carving foam with upholstery processes, and marblizing plaster. The material surfaces of all works have a graphic quality, creating line sculpturally, imitating mark-making.”

“Maggie is typical of many emerging artists who no longer confine themselves to one medium and are influenced by all that goes on in the world. She incorporates her thinking and material sensibility from working in fiber and mixed media with a love of architectural structures and a variety of installation strategies.”  -Warren Seelig

UPCOMING SHOWS:
2014 Rhode Island School of Design Graduate Thesis Exhibition, Rhode Island Convention Center, Providence, May 2014
Innovators and Legends: Generations in Textiles and Fibers, traveling exhibition organized by the Muskegon Museum of Art: University Art Museum, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, January 24–April 11, 2014; Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, May 24–September 7, 2014

LAUREN TOSSWILL
“Until recently I primarily worked in printmaking and painting with a focus on portraiture. Now my work has shifted to digital video, audio, and time-based installations. I’m inspired by my day jobs where the ostensibly mundane unfolds into something unexpected and revelatory. My lack of experience with sound/video editing drives me to explore alternative means of manipulating my raw media. I use objects gathered from office environments for my installations.”

“Lauren shows great potential and has an inquisitive spark. She has distinguished herself for her conceptual rigor and her consistent pushing of boundaries in her studio practice.”  -Gail Spaien

UPCOMING SHOW:
BFA Thesis Exhibition, Maine College of Art, Portland, May 2–23, 2014