New Exhibitions on View at Caldbeck Gallery

Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland showcases three artists.  Opening Reception on First Friday, July 5, 5-8pm. The show runs from July 2 – 27.

 

LOIS DODD  Selected Paintings “Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine”

In Lois Dodd’s exhibit, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, the oil on panel paintings

measure in the range of 12 x 23 to 20 x 25 inches. A number were painted on the artist’s

various trips to Vermont and New Hampshire over the years, while the majority of the works

are Maine paintings, predominantly of subject matter found in her neighborhood of Cushing.

All are landscapes. Roberta Smith, renowned New York Times art reviewer, writes of Dodd’s

work, “…the paintings hold your attention. Many seem at first glance slightly unnerving:

awkward, brusque or even unfinished. While they seduce the eye with light and color, they

challenge it with an assortment of brush strokes, spatial complexities and compositional

quirks, teetering in different ways on the cusp between abstract and representational. Behind

their veneer of homey familiarity, these paintings are tough and unruly.” Dodd’s work has

received innumerable awards including an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters

Purchase Prize. Her work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums throughout

the country. Dodd’s most recent major retrospective, Lois Dodd: Catching the Light, was

curated in 2012 by Barbara O’Brien for the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas

City, Missouri, and then traveled to the Portland Museum of Art in Maine in the winter of 2013.

Dodd’s work has been shown widely in NYC, and throughout the U.S., for more than 60 years.

This is her 12th solo show at the Caldbeck, where she has shown since 1985.

 

MELANIE ESSEX  New Work “Above us only sky” 

After living and painting in the city of London, England for 22 years, Melanie Essex moved

back to the U.S. two years ago, settling in Cushing, Maine, where she had spent most of her

childhood summers. With a permanent studio now in Maine, she explains about her approach

to painting, “all of my work begins with looking at, and then responding to, the natural world.

Context is the important filter. Since moving to rural Maine, my subject matter has become

essentially more elemental than it was when I painted the London cityscape. Even though I’m

now focused on nature, the influence of the constructed world – culture, politics, community –

has proven inescapable”. Writer and critic, Katherine Bucknell, writes of Essex’s work, “Her

color resonances are subtle, intoxicating, profound. They can change the weather inside your

head!” The work in this show includes small canvases measuring 15 x 15 inches, as well as

several 30 x 30 inch canvases, and 2 canvases measuring 60 x 60 inches. The title of the show,

Only Sky Above Us, describes the subject matter of these new paintings, all produced in the past

year. Essex studied painting at the New York Studio School, and received a BA from Harvard

University, followed by studies in Belgium at the Institute National Superior des Arts. Her

work is collected widely on both sides of the Atlantic. This is Essex’s 3rd solo exhibit with the

Caldbeck.

 

SAM CADY  New Work “Here and There”

For Here and There, Sam Cady has selected a number works that show us that all things are

of interest to him. In an iconic, shaped canvas titled Beyer Ship Ledge, Early Morning, Cady

shares with us his love for the islands off the Coast of Maine, showing the viewpoint of a person

in a kayak, almost at water level. One might also imagine it to be the point of view of a seabird

or a seal. While 3 paintings are of Maine subjects, the exhibit includes some surprises from

other parts of the country, and the world. Exhibitions have taken place in NYC, Boston, Tokyo,

and Maine. A major exhibition, Parts of the Whole, was installed at the Center for Maine

Contemporary Art in Rockland ME in 2017. Many private and public collections include Cady’s

work. His first solo exhibit at the Caldbeck was in 1997.

 

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11- 4, Sunday 1-4 [email protected]  www.caldbeck.com 207 594 5935