Work by Jeane Cohen.

The Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA) is pleased to announce that the artist Jeane Cohen will present her first solo museum exhibition, titled “This Watching Land,” in its Main Gallery. The exhibition will premier paintings created during Cohen’s year-long residency at the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program residency (Brooklyn). 

The exhibition will be on view from Sept. 30, 2023, through Jan. 7, 2024, with an opening reception on Sept. 30. Admission to the reception is free. 

Cohen’s paintings in “This Watching Land” progress through animal worlds, various landscapes, firescapes, and abstractions and ask the viewer to consider nature as sentient and always watching. The landscapes are not portrayals of particular places, instead, they represent explorations of various natural terrains. 

In his book, “Why Look at Animals,” John Berger writes, “Animals are always observed. The fact that they can observe us has lost all significance. They are the objects of our ever-extended knowledge. What we know about them is an index of our power, and thus an index of what separates us from them. The more we know, the further away they are.”

Cohen intends to bring viewers closer to nature and awaken the part of us that is nature itself. 

On the occasion of the exhibition, The Center for Maine Contemporary Art is co-publishing an exhibition catalog with the artist. Designed by Joseph Gilmore, the catalog will include contributions from notable critics Michelle Grabner and Barry Schwabsy, and an interview with Cohen conducted by the acclaimed artist Katherine Bradford. Excerpts from the texts by activist Sherri Mitchell and scholar Karen Armstrong are also included. Timothy Peterson, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Center for Maine Contemporary Art is contributing a forward to the book. 

Jeane Cohen (b. 1988 Worcester, MA) divides her time between Midcoast Maine and New York. She received a BA from Hampshire College and MFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited nationally at venues including the Institute for Contemporary Art at the Maine College of Art and Design (Portland), Miami University (Ohio), Slag Gallery (New York), Julius Caesar Gallery (Chicago), Make Room (Los Angeles), Able Baker Contemporary (Portland) and Vox Populi (Philadelphia), among other venues. Cohen is a recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. 

An opening reception will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. Sept 30 for three solo exhibitions opening that day, including “This Watching Land,” “Alison Hildreth: Darkness Visible” and “Gamaliel Rodriguez: (In)hospitable.” The lobby exhibition, “Shinique Smith: Continous Poem,” has been extended to remain on view through Jan. 7.

All four exhibitions are curated by executive director and chief curator Timothy Peterson in collaboration with the artists. CMCA’s exhibition program is made possible by the generous support of CMCA donors and members.

CMCA is located at 21 Winter St., Rockland. For more information, go to cmcanow.org.