ARTIST LISTING-April 2009

Extraordinary artists who capture the magnetism of Maine

Tom Curry

Tom Curry is a plein air painter living in Brooklin, ME. His pastel landscapes defy traditional methods by applying luminous color in layered transparencies over dyed paper grounds. His pastels and oil paintings are represented in private collections around the country, leading galleries, the Delaware Art Museum, and the Wheaton College Art Collection. He is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, and his work is featured in publications including The Art of Maine in Winter by Carl Little. He also teaches popular pastel workshops on location.

Camden Hills, 2008, pastel on paper, 20” x 36”

For more Tom Curry: tomcurrystudio.com, The Firehouse Gallery, George Marshall Store Gallery, Thos. Moser

 

Michael Lewis

Michael H. Lewis paints luminous landscapes using the extremely spontaneous and improvisational nature of his unusual turpentine wash technique to transform Maine’s natural environment into images evoking inner states of mind, emotion, mystery, and spirit. Lewis exhibits his paintings at Aucocisco Gallery in Portland. More than twenty-five of his works are in the collection of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. Other collections include the Albertina Museum in Vienna, Austria; the Portland Museum of Art; and the Colby College Museum of Art. Lewis teaches painting, drawing, and sequential art at the University of Maine.

Jumping Towards the Light #4, 2007, turpentine wash (with oils) on rag board, 18” x 24”

For more Michael Lewis: Aucocisco Galleries

 

Frederick Lynch

Frederick Lynch has been living in Maine since 1972, for the past twelve years in Saco. From 1981 until 2006, he taught drawing and painting at the University of Southern Maine. In 2005, a twenty-year survey of his work was exhibited at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, and last year, a one-person show at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. His work is included in the collections of the Portland Museum of Art and the Farnsworth and as a permanent installation in the Portland Public Library. Lynch is represented by Icon Contemporary Art in Brunswick and the George Marshall Store Gallery in York. Both galleries will mount exhibitions of his work, this summer and fall, respectively.

Division 75, 2004–2006, oil on canvas over panel, 64” x 80”

For more Frederick Lynch: Icon Contemporary Art, George Marshall Store Gallery, Portland Museum of Art, Farnsworth Art Museum, University of Southern Maine

 

Alice Spencer

Alice Spencer’s patterned paintings reference the woven and embroidered textiles she has collected over thirty years of travel in Asia and South America. Using robes or shirts, each painting is composed in layers like an archeological dig in reverse. The densely built-up surfaces suggest maps of human experience unfolding in time. Over the last thirty-five years, Spencer has had numerous solo exhibitions in Maine and other parts of New England, as well as in New York. Her work has been featured at the U.S. embassies in Chile and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in museum and corporate collections including those of the Portland Museum of Art, Colby College Museum of Art, United Technologies, and the UNUM Corporation.

Shirt #2, 2009, acrylic on gesso and sand on board, 22” x 30”

For more Alice Spencer: alicespencer.net, Aucocisco Galleries, Turtle Gallery

 

Alan Bray

A Maine native, Alan Bray currently lives in Sangerville. He is a graduate of the University of Southern Maine and the Villa Schifanoia Graduate School of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy. He has exhibited throughout the United States, and his work is in numerous private and public collections including those of the Portland Museum of Art and the Farnsworth Art Museum. A review in the New Yorker states, “Alan Bray’s casein-on-panel landscapes are cool, elegant, and blessedly devoid of prettiness… [They] evoke nature’s majesty but drain away its wildness, suggesting something of the poise and repose of Giotto or Mantegna.” Bray is represented by the Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland.

Brief Divergence, 2009, casein on panel, 14” x 19”

For more Alan Bray: alanbray.com, Caldbeck Gallery

 

Katherine Bradford

Katherine Bradford is best known for her paintings of boats and of swimmers that she creates from her imagination. Water serves as a basis for people to gather in groups in a spirit of ritual and camaraderie. According to New York Times reviewer Roberta Smith, “Bradford’s paintings are beautifully made, sincerely felt and distinguished by a special talent for schematizing nature into small, ruggedly made paintings that are at once poetic and humorous.” She has shown her work recently at Aucocisco Galleries in Portland and Edward Thorp Gallery in New York.

Life Guard, 2008, oil on canvas, 9” x 12”

For more Katherine Bradford: Aucocisco Galleries, Edward Thorp Gallery, Sampson Projects, Cheryl Pelavin Fine Arts, Rebecca Ibel Gallery, Ober Gallery

 

Dennis Pinette

Dennis Pinette’s visual armature is the inherent energy found in fire, industrial landscape, the tangle of woods and fields, and the ceaseless rhythm of ocean waves. He says, “I like to push realism to the edge of disintegration.” Pinette’s major 2003 retrospective at the Farnsworth Art Museum was reviewed by Deborah Weisgall for the New York Times. His work is included in the permanent collections of the DeCordova Museum, Portland Museum of Art, Farnsworth Art Museum, and the U.S. Department of State, the museum collections of Bowdoin, Colby, and Bates colleges, and numerous corporate and private collections.

Green Sea, 2008, oil on panel, 18” x 18”

For more Dennis Pinette: Caldbeck Gallery

 

 

Charlie Hewitt

The culture of Maine’s millworking towns where Charlie Hewitt grew up deeply infuses his paintings; however, all of the places he has lived—including New York City—have informed his work. His desire to portray “things” or “stuff” is manifested in the physically manufactured, handmade quality his art possesses. His work is featured in the museum collections of Colby, Bowdoin, and Bates colleges, as well as in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of Art. In 2006, he had a one-man show at the Farnsworth Art Museum and, more recently, an exhibition at Whitney Art Works in Portland.

Rivington Street, 2004, oil on canvas, 48” x 60”

For more Charlie Hewitt: charliehewitt.com, Jim Kempner Fine Art

 

William Irvine

William Irvine was born in Scotland and graduated from the Glasgow School of Art. Almost fifty years ago, he came to Blue Hill and has been mining the riches of the Maine coast ever since. Each year, he works toward simplification and elimination. As the critic Phillip Isaacson said about Irvine’s work, “When a view is pared to its essentials, the images explode through a release of energy. Add a touch of the surreal and you have a fascinating body of work.”

The Checker Table Cloth, 2008, oil on canvas, 36” x 48”

For more William Irvine: Greenhut Galleries, Courthouse Gallery Fine Art, The Firehouse Gallery, Leighton Gallery, George Marshall Store Gallery

 

 

Connie Hayes

For Connie Hayes, the making of a painting is a response to the specific environment. Her lush, vibrant color reveals light conditions, spiritual mood, and temperature. Hayes received her MFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University and her BFA from the Maine College of Art (where she later taught for ten years). She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1989. Hayes participated in arts administration at Maine College of Art for fifteen years, including serving as interim dean of faculty. In 2003, the school awarded her an honorary doctorate in fine arts. Her project “Borrowed Views” has become her full-time pursuit as she lives and paints in other people’s homes as an artist-in-residence.

Three Mansards, Stonington, 2008, oil on canvas, 42” x 42”

For more Connie Hayes: conniehayes.com, Dowling Walsh Gallery, George Marshall Store Gallery, New Era Gallery, DFN Gallery

 

 

Linden Frederick

Linden Frederick paints what everybody knows, but in viewing his work they see it in a new light—literally. Frederick is nationally known for his dusk and night paintings and he paints the familiar—and it’s very American. Frederick’s roots are in small-town America; he has lived in the small coastal town of Belfast since 1989, and it seems that most viewers share the same past and identify strongly with his subject matter. His exhibition YOU ARE HERE will be open April 25 through July 18 at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art and will feature a sampling of twenty years of his work.

Traveling Salesman, 2008, oil on panel, 12.25” x 12.25”

For more Linden Frederick: Farnsworth Art Museum, Forum Gallery

 

 

Dahlov Ipcar

In 1939, Dahlov Ipcar had her first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the first of many solo shows over the next sixty years. Her works are now in the permanent collections of many important art institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Brooklyn Museum. She is also represented in Maine’s leading art museums, as well as in many corporate and private collections. At the age of 91, Ipcar continues to produce her fanciful paintings and murals at her home and studio in Georgetown, Maine. An exhibition of her new paintings will be featured at Frost Gully Gallery in November 2009.

Merry-Go-Round, 2007, oil, 34” x 34”

For more Dahlov Ipcar: Frost Gully Gallery, Courthouse Gallery Fine Art, The Firehouse Gallery, Portland Museum of Art, Bates College Museum of Art

 

 

David Dewey

For over thirty years, David Dewey has exhibited his watercolor paintings in New York City, Maine, and throughout the United States. His work is included in many museums and public and private collections. Susan C. Larson, PhD, writes, “His recent watercolors are breathtaking in their authority, their confident grasp of space and material, and their sheer scale and technical bravado.” Dewey has taught at Parsons School of Design, the National Academy of Design School, and the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, where he was named professor emeritus in 2008. He continues to conduct watercolor workshops, and his book, The Watercolor Book, remains a must-have for watercolor painters and educators.

Isle Au Haut, 2008, watercolor and gouache on paper, 31” x 45”

For more David Dewey: Caldbeck Gallery, Bernarducci-Meisel Gallery

 

Sam Cady

Sam Cady’s clean, spare aesthetic evolved out of his Maine and Massachusetts heritage. Born in Boothbay Harbor and raised outside of Boston (spending summers in Friendship), he started drawing Maine subjects at an early age. After receiving his BA from the University of New Hampshire and his MFA from Indiana University, he moved to New York City in 1969, where he lived, worked, and taught for thirty years. Exhibiting around the country and in Japan, Cady became known for shaped representational paintings of the American scene that were influenced by American realism, pop, and minimalism—though his direct New England vision never left him.

Two Shaker Buildings, 2008, lithography, 30” x 40” (Printer Tim Higbee, Hope Editions)

For more Sam Cady: Caldbeck Gallery, Howard Yezerski Gallery, Mary Ryan Gallery

 

 

Robert Shetterly

Robert Shetterly graduated with a degree in English literature from Harvard College, where he took courses in drawing that changed the direction of his creative life—from the written word to the image. After moving to Maine in 1970, he taught himself drawing, printmaking, and painting. He illustrated for the Maine Times newspaper, Audubon Adventures, and approximately thirty books. His paintings and prints are in collections throughout the U.S. and Europe. A collection of his drawings and etchings, Speaking Fire at Stones, was published in 1993. His painting tends toward the narrative and the surreal, and he has not been—until this time—a portrait painter.

Sister Lucy Poulin, 2007, acrylic on wooden panel, 36” x 30”

For more Robert Shetterly: New Era Gallery

 

 

David Driskell

Artist, historian, curator, and educator David C. Driskell has become the preeminent voice in African American art and one of the foremost contributors to the development of modern art in America. Although much of Driskell’s work emphasizes African themes, the Maine landscape remains his foremost inspiration when painting. As an educator, he has inspired countless students of all ethnic backgrounds to explore their heritage through art. In 2000, former president Bill Clinton awarded Driskell the National Humanities Medal for his contribution to American art and culture.

Ferns in Moonlight, 2008, egg tempera, 30” x 22.5”

For more David Driskell: daviddriskell.com, Greenhut Galleries, DC Moore Gallery

 

 

David Campbell

David Campbell and his artist-wife Patricia Cobb moved to Maine from Boston in the mid-1990s. There, he taught art at the Museum of Fine Arts School while exhibiting his work in Boston and New York. His work has been included in major invitational and juried exhibitions, including recent Portland Museum of Art Biennials. His work was also included in the major traveling exhibition Rediscovering the Landscape of the Americas, curated by the late Alan Gussow and produced by Gerald Peters Gallery. Campbell’s work is included in many important collections, including those of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Tank Farm, 2006, oil on canvas, 18” x 42”

For more David Campbell: Frost Gully Gallery