Upcoming Exhibits
The Lives of the Jewelers
July 1-October 9, 2022
In Maine, handmade jewelry and fine metalwork are represented by a group of artists who are powerfully inspired by the world around them. From the forms of the region’s plants and animals, to histories encompassing funeral traditions and sailors’ knots, Maine jewelers use metals and other materials to enact direct communication of their creative responses to their environment. In “The Lives of the Jewelers”, Maine metal artists will display their work, in the form of both jewelry and extended applications of their chosen materials, alongside imagery and text describing the sources that inspire them. Source materials will overlap with environmental science, social and medical sciences, regional history, and the abstraction of visual art. “The Lives of the Jewelers” will allow both a clear look into the creative process, and underscore the interdisciplinary nature of Maine jewelers’ work. As in Vasari’s 1550 text The Lives of the Artists, which illuminated the practices of Renaissance visionaries, this exhibition will provide a window into the motivations and intellectual preoccupations of individual contemporary Maine jewelers, who bring their vision of beauty so directly into daily life.
Michael Kolster: Home and Other Realms and
Work from the Stephen K. Halpert Collection of Photography
October 21, 2022-January 22, 2023
This two-part exhibition will highlight the work of renowned Maine photographer Michael Kolster, presenting three distinct bodies of work: atmospheric images of public spaces in Paris; architecturally-oriented photographs of the Lewiston-Auburn urban center; and domestic portraits focussing on his son, who lives with developmental differences. This exhibit will touch on themes of the subjectivity of place, neurodiversity, family connections & domesticity. “Home and Other Realms” will be accompanied by text and a public lecture touching on the thematic of living with non-neurotypical family members. The concurrent show of work from the Stephen K. Halpert Collection of Photography will complement Kolster’s exhibition.
Tenacious
Curated by Tilly Laskey
February 10-June 11, 2023
Featuring work by James Graham, Karen Jelenfy, James Bradley Marshall and Ian Trask, “Tenacious” deals with themes of aging, tick-borne and chronic illness, mental health, and the artist’s response to these challenges in contemporary Maine artwork.
In a state known for realistic depictions of lighthouses, sailboats, and landscapes, where the legacies of artists like Winslow Homer and Andrew Wyeth loom large, Maine is a challenging place to be an abstract artist. While abstract artistic forebearers like Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Louise Nevelson worked in Maine, their art was far more regularly exhibited in New York rather than Portland during their lifetimes. This four-person exhibition endeavors to re-open conversations about living artists working in Maine within the genre of abstraction, how their inner and outer experiences with Maine’s landscape informs their process-driven work, and the materiality of the art.
Rose Marasco: Camera Lucida
June 23-October 8, 2023
Rose Marasco, a major voice in the world of contemporary photography, is celebrated in this solo exhibition. The Stephen K. Halpert Collection and the Maine Women Writers Collection will collaborate on the exhibition, which marks the cooperative acquisition of several of Marasco’s major works. “Camera Lucida” also marks the publication of Marasco’s upcoming monograph, and will feature new work as well as her groundbreaking “Projections” and “Domestic Objects” series.