‘Portraits in Place’ at Landing Gallery

Landing Gallery in Rockland presents the solo exhibit “Portraits in Place,” featuring 38 new paintings by Sarah Faragher.

The show runs from June 2 to 26.

Faragher is a 1990 graduate of Colby College. Her work was included in “Art of Acadia,” by David and Carl Little (Down East Books). Faragher was an artist in residence at Acadia National Park and the Weir Farm National Historic Site in Wilton, Connecticut, and has been invited to participate numerous times in Art Week on Great Spruce Head Island.

“As I look back over 20 years of working with the landscape to create paintings together, I see that I’ve come to regard each place as individual, belonging to itself. Timeless,” Faragher says. “This group of paintings encompasses my ongoing interests as a painter and human being recognizing the sentience of the land and all things of nature, describing contrasts of shadow and radiance and the continuum between them and experiencing the endless cycle of life and the seasons as a totality. Year after year, I returned to certain places to look more deeply: Bear Island, Great Spruce Head Island, Port Clyde, Cape Split, Steuben, Stonington, Brooklin, Mount Desert Island, Schoodic, Monson, Moosehead Lake, the view from my own studio at home in Stockton Springs, and so many other beloved locales. As I made images of the islands, ledges, fields, barrens, lakes and woods, they became portraits of what I saw and knew to be true and also self-portraits, as I believe all painting can be. I’m looking at a new landscape now, since the unexpected death of my husband Ryan last summer. He is fundamental to who I am. His loss is incalculable and indescribable. I don’t know what directions my paintings will now take or paths they will lead me to, but I am steadily painting how I feel. I remain committed to painting and to keeping my heart open. Our human species has made images portraying life for so many thousands of years, and I’m grateful to be within that tradition, representing the natural world as I live each day of my life and create these autobiographical portraits of place.”

Landing Gallery is at 409 Main St. in Rockland. Hours are noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. The gallery is closed Monday and Tuesday. For more information, call 207-239-1223, email [email protected], or go to facebook.com/landinggallery.