Alan Fishman’s show, Captured Moments, at the Maine Jewish Museum, in the Fineberg Community Room, opened on March 8th, 2020. The MJM closed to the public a week later due to new health guidelines for the pandemic virus outbreak. We offered Alan a chance to show our readers some of his work.
Alan Fishman, Juggler, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 in., 2009.
This exhibition features works from the themes that have been central to Alan Fishman’s work for the past 50 years. During this time, he has continually alternated his focus from the beauty of the natural world, to the complexity and drama of the human spirit.
Alan Fishman, Dream of Flight, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 66 in., 2006.
His figure paintings, informed by the theater of our human relationships, are linked to the age-old tradition of art inspired by ancient myth, where the consequences of choice and will are crucial and often devastating. These works focus on mid-story moments that foreshadow great consequence, epiphany, or transformation.
Alan Fishman, Mime, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 60 in., 2009.
The other paintings in the exhibition were created while Fishman was working as an Art History lecturer on ships, traveling around the world from 2014 through 2018. During this extraordinary journey—from the Caribbean to Southeast Asia, Helsinki to Israel, Abu Dhabi to Singapore, and numerous crossings of the world’s oceans—he painted hundreds of watercolors, on site in ports and from the deck of the ships. The paintings capture moments that express the magic and beauty of our wondrous watery planet.
Alan Fishman, Tropical Sunset, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 in., 2019.
Image at top: Alan Fishman, Atlantic Evening, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 in., 2019.