UMaine Museum of Art announces Winter Exhibitions

Nowhere in Particular features a series of paintings by New York City-based artist Poogy Bjerklie. The artist’s work is influenced by memories of growing up in Hallowell, Maine and summering on Richardson Lake. The works depict references to bodies of water, but not the typical coastal scenes that some may associate with Maine. Instead, Bjerklie’s images focus on the somber morning and grey evening light that is characteristic of the inland portion of the state. She uses oil paint on square wood panels, utilizing the rough surfaces of the wood to reinforce the atmospheric quality of the landscape scene. Bjerklie’s images seem to be viewed through a hazy lens. Details dissolve into diffused brushstrokes, conveying the notion of remembrance and longing, as if the images are a reflection of the past.

Bjerklie’s paintings recall romantic art with its emphasis on mood and shadow. Nineteenth and twentieth century American artists such as Albert Pinkham Ryder, Ralph Blakelock, and George Inness, are particularly influential to the artist’s work. Bjerklie also cites the museum-like displays of antique shops in her hometown of Hallowell as a prominent source of her stylistic approach to painting. The artist states that her images “act as memories of a place to escape to.” Her use of small, square picture planes creates intimate spaces resulting in a dialog between mark-making, memories, and place. Viewed from afar the images suggest dreamlike landscapes of remembered places, nostalgic, and just out of reach.

Shadows of Earth features recent bodies of work by Maine-based photographer Caleb Charland. The artist is known for his inventive handling of materials that expands traditional notions of the photographic medium. Charland’s creative process is rooted in scientific inquiry—he often employs multi-layered steps and experiments designed to yield these alluring images. The artist states, “Each piece I make begins as a question of visual possibilities and develops in tandem with the laws of nature, often yielding unexpected results measurable only through photographic processes. Energy vibrates in that space between our perceptions of the world and the potential the mind senses for our interventions within the world.”

In several of the works, Charland’s utilizes the movement of his body in the creation of the images. With camera lens pointed at the night sky in a long exposure, the artist’s breathing is recorded as streaks of stars and planets. In another image, a spherical full moon takes on the form of a luminous tangle of light. The image captures Charland’s steady movements while paddling a canoe on a calm lake at night. In other works, the photographer’s desire to “more deeply understand the mechanisms of nature” is reflected in a grid depicting a variety of leaf species. The compositions are created by using half of the image as a paper negative, revealing the tonal opposite of the other half of the leaf. Through his photographs Charland encourages an introspective contemplation of the natural world, while also exploring the materiality of the photographic medium.