Courthouse Gallery Fine Art presents three solo shows

Ellsworth Courthouse Gallery Fine Art presents three solo shows: “William Irvine: Watermark,” “Rick Fox: Untamed” and “Tom Curry: New Work,” each of which will run July 8 to Aug. 5.

A reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m July 17.

“William Irvine: Watermark” presents 42 new oil paintings by Irvine, who turned 93 this past February. Irvine shares his thoughts about painting at this age in the exhibition catalog: “Why, at the age of 93, do I still find myself sitting in my paint-smelly studio? Yet here I am this morning, looking at a blank canvas, waiting for a way to express something, to put down a feeling.”

Irvine (b.1931) is a Scottish/American painter, whose impressive oeuvre spans seventy-plus years. He is best known for his seascapes, still lifes and enchanting white-house narratives depicting people going about their daily lives and chores. Irvine was born in the town of Troon on the Scottish coast. After graduating from the Glasgow School of Art and serving in the Scottish army, Irvine came of age in London where he was a part of a lively avant-garde art scene. In 1968, Irvine moved to Downeast Maine, and was immediately drawn to the fishing villages of Corea and Jonesport, whose tidy houses reminded him of the white farms dotting the green hills of Scotland. Here, harbors, islands and boats, the sea and the sky, inspired bold work based on a life lived by the sea. His pictorial concepts are fueled by two driving forces: abstraction and representation. Irvine brings these antithetical elements into balance with his poetic sensibility and the richness of his textural compositions. Irvine’s work is the subject of two books: William Irvine: At Home (Marshall Wilkes 2018), and William Irvine: A Painter’s Journey (Marshall Wilkes 2014) by Carl Little. In 2023, the first documentary on Irvine’s life and career, “A Life Behind the Canvas,” was produced by Whisky Wolf Media. The film debuted at The Grand in Ellsworth, and was aired on Maine Public Television in 2024.

Rugged energy and colliding shapes of color make the semi-abstract, plein-air landscapes in “Rick Fox: Untamed” a thrill to behold. Fox applies thick layers of paint and wields his knife with confidence. The work is sculptural and gutsy.

Fox (b.1968) is known for the rugged energy and the colliding shapes of color in his plein air landscapes. Fox, who moved to Maine in 2013, compares the thrills and challenges of painting Maine’s tidal shifts and her ever-changing weather and light to riding something untamed. In 2019, Fox reconnected with his Irish roots when he was awarded a Ballinglen Painting Fellowship. His work is now in the permanent collection of the Ballinglen Museum of Art. As an undergrad, Fox studied painting at Scuola Lorenzo de’ Medici, Florence, Italy. He earned his BFA in Painting from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and his MFA from Massachusetts College of Art. Fox had the good fortune to work with Marcia Llyod, George Nick, Jon Imber, Gregory Amenoff, and John Walker. Fox’s has been awarded fellowships and residencies at the Mark Rothko Center in Latvia, Playa in Oregon; the Heliker-Lahontan Foundation on Great Cranberry Island, Maine; and the C-Scape Dune Shack Residency in Provincetown, MA. He is a two-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Grant, and the recipient of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation’s Piscataqua Region Artist Advancement Grant, among others. Fox’s work has been exhibited extensively nationally and internationally.

“New Work” by Tom Curry highlights the enduring magnetism of his island paintings. Curry continues to explore what he calls the paradox of place: “It is not fixed, but always changing — the light shifts from moment to moment, water is never still, clouds come and go.”

Curry (b.1957) is an accomplished oil painter, who depicts the villages and coastline near his studio in Brooklin, Maine. As an en plein air painter at heart, Curry is most at home working outdoors in direct contact with the clear, searing light or a dense fog, the heat of the sun or a frigid wind, the sounds of crickets or the distant drone of a fishing boat, and the smell of salt air. “I still can’t believe how gorgeous it [Maine] is; it’s serene, but disheveled; it’s raw and not overly organized.” For Curry, the landscape is more than a passive backdrop of scenery. His work explores the passing of time and the relationship between stillness and flux. He wants the viewer to feel alive — to experience the wild, muscular, and ultimately unknowable mysteries of natural forces that are breathing, ever changing, and seamless. Curry, who has been painting for over 25 years, frequently revisits the landscape of Chatto, a small island just offshore from his home. Chatto Island has become the subject of an ongoing series of more than 60 paintings, many of which were highlighted in the monograph Island: Paintings by Tom Curry (Down East Books 2012). The enduring magnetism of Curry’s island paintings has been his ability to depict what he calls the paradox of place: “It is not fixed, but always changing — the light shifts from moment to moment, water is never still, clouds come and go.”

Courthouse Gallery is at 6 Court St., Ellsworth. For gallery hours or more information, call 667-6611 or visit www.courthousegallery.com.