Dowling Walsh Gallery presents three solo exhibitions in June

Dowling Walsh Gallery will open three new solo exhibitions of work by artists Sebastian Blanck, Will Sears and Kevin Xiques on June 7, with a public reception from 4 to 7 p.m. during Rockland’s First Friday Art Walk. Now in its 17th year, Dowling Walsh Gallery, located at 365 Main St. in Rockland, specializes in art by leading and emerging artists, especially those with connections to Maine.

Sebastian Blanck (June 7-29)

In his third exhibition with Dowling Walsh Gallery, artist Sebastian Blanck offers new oil paintings featuring his “favorite subjects”: his family members and, most often, his wife, fellow artist Isca Greenfield-Sanders. Blanck’s colorful, expressively painted images celebrate the simple intimacies of domestic life—a cup of coffee, a neighborhood stroll, an afternoon in the sun. At a time of universal longing for contentment and peace in our everyday lives, Blanck’s paintings offer a respite from the world’s woes. “Upon first glance,” writes curator and art historian Matthew Israel, “Sebastian Blanck seems simply a painter of idyllic scenes. However, given the attention they deserve, Blanck’s works reveal a complex investment in formal experimentation, an unexpected tension between figuration and abstraction, and an engaging and unconventional approach to contemporary realism.”

Blanck received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI. In 2001, he was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome, Italy. His work has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Michael Reid Gallery, Berlin, Germany; Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson, WY; Ille Arts, Amagansett, NY; Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO; De Buck Gallery, New York, NY; Dubner Moderne, Lausanne, Switzerland; and Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden. Additionally, it has been included in important group exhibitions at The Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus, GA; LAUNCH F18, New York, NY; Site: Brooklyn Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Lepore Savage Gallery, New York, NY; Wallspace, New York, NY; Scott White Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; Werkstatte, New York, NY; and Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, IL. Blanck lives and works in New York, NY. 

Will Sears: Intervales (June 7 to July 27)

In the solo exhibition “Intervales,” artist Will Sears presents a new group of his carefully composed geometric wood assemblages. “In this current body of work,” he says, “I am looking at the relationships between colors as they perform in sequences.” To create his assemblages, Sears employs a labor-intensive process, painting sheets of plywood, cutting it into precise strips, tinting select strips with a colored pencil, and then cutting the strips into smaller pieces still. These pieces become the components he uses to build a painting, arranging them in systematic grids and patterns. “Arranging modular color into rhythmic patterns enables me to deepen my understanding of subtle color relationships and find satisfaction in creating harmonic compositions, “he says. Taking inspiration from his immediate surroundings, such as the colors of the sky during inclement weather or architectural shapes within familiar buildings, Sears distills visual information gleaned from his environment into abstract forms, re-presenting the familiar through the personal lens of his process.

Will Sears received his BFA from Syracuse University. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions throughout the United States, including at Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, MA; Soft Times Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Lot F Gallery, Boston, MA; Tiger Strikes Astroid, New York, NY; Common Street Arts, Lewiston, ME; Buoy Gallery, Kittery, ME; and Grant Wahlquist Gallery, Alice Gauvin Gallery, and Able Baker Contemporary, and New Systems Exhibitions in Portland, ME. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, Rockland, ME; Hewnoaks, Lovell, ME, and received a fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. His practice extends to public art, including large-scale murals in Portland, ME. He lives and works in South Portland.

Kevin Xiques: “Life is Confusing at this Point” (June 7-29)

In the solo exhibition “Life is Confusing at this Point,” artist Kevin Xiques presents a new group of paintings that he began shortly after his move to New York City from Portland at the end of August 2023. Each painting documents a distinct moment between the beginning of September 2023 and the end of March 2024. “The paintings,” says Xiques, “convey the overwhelming shift from quiet, gentle-natured Maine to the rambunctious, unsettling-yet-beautiful city of New York.” To capture this transition period, Xiques painted intuitively, searching for truth at the moment, above all else. Through the accumulation of intertwined gesture, shape, density, and color, each action or inaction informed his relationship to the present. With each painting, he says, “a self-reflection occurred. These twelve works embody a seven-month unfolding of happiness, grief, excitement, solitude, confusion, and optimism.” 

Xiques received a BA in philosophy with a film and television studies minor from the University of Vermont. He began his painting practice in 2020 while living in Portland, ME. Since then, his work has been included in several exhibitions in Maine and at Katzman Contemporary Projects, Concord, NH, and SOIL Gallery, Seattle, WA. His first solo exhibition, “This is for You,” was at Dowling Walsh Gallery in 2023. He is the recipient of a David C. Driskell Fellowship and Black Seed Studio Residency at Indigo Arts Alliance, as well as a SPACE Gallery Studio Grant. In 2022, Maine Magazine selected him as one of eighteen artists to watch. He currently lives and works in Queens, NY.

Dowling Walsh Gallery is at 365 Main St. in Rockland. The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and by appointment on Sundays and Mondays. Visit www.dowlingwalsh.com, or call 207-596-0084 for more information.