Alight on the Rocky Shores opens in October at UMVA Gallery, Portland
Three artists, Judith Greene-Janse, Joanne Tarlin, and Ann Tracy, who relocated to coastal towns in Maine, exhibit paintings and mixed-media artwork in Alight on the Rocky Shores: This Is Not an Exhibition of Lighthouses. The exhibit opens Friday 6 October 2023 with an artists’ reception from 5 to 8 p.m. at the UMVA Gallery, inside the Portland Media Center (516 Congress St., Portland, Maine), and continues on Fridays (4–8 p.m.) and Saturdays (1–4 p.m.) until 28 October 2023. An artists’ talk is set for Saturday 21 October 2023 at 2 p.m.
Judith Greene-Janse, Closeup with Barnacles at Bottom, 12 x 6 in.
Greene-Janse, Tarlin, and Tracy have lived along both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans prior to alighting on the rocky shores of Maine. These artists find sublime qualities in its elements that speak to them personally and universally. Like a lighthouse providing a safe beacon in the fog, the coast of Maine attracted their attention and guided their creativity to create “landscapes” that encapsulate moments of their lives. When writing about his painting The Human Condition, a painting of a landscape in front of a window of the same landscape, the Belgian artist René Magritte wrote:
we sometimes remember a past event as being in the present. Time and space lose meaning and our daily experience becomes paramount. This is how we see the world. We see it outside ourselves, and at the same time we only have a representation of it in ourselves.
Joanne Tarlin, Underwater Fantasy Ocean Cooling, oil on linen, 30 x 30 in.
The artists have collaborated to create a mixed-media painting (24 x 52 in.) specifically for this exhibition that intertwines their creative styles and portrays their respective visions of the world. With this project, they hope to portray a beacon of hope and joy anchored in the reality that we have but a short amount of time on this rock. The collaborative painting will be auctioned off as a silent auction item, with bidders being encouraged to stop by the Portland Media Center all month to check on their bids. Whoever has the highest bid on 28 October 2023 will win the painting. A portion of the proceeds will benefit UMVA.
Image at top: Ann Tracy, Coastal Disturbances, 30 x 30 in.