‘The Big Picture’ set to open at Landing Gallery featuring  paintings by Sarah Faragher

Landing Gallery, at 409 Main Street in Rockland, will open a new solo art exhibition of 53 paintings by Sarah Faragher. “The Big Picture” runs June 6 to 29, with an opening reception from 4 to 8 p.m. June 6 during the First Friday Art Walk and meet Farager in the gallery from 4 to 7 p.m.

“Throughout 2024, I painted wide open views from high vantage points around Penobscot Bay,” Faragher says. “A few places were old friends, and new locations offered rearranged perspectives on the islands and mainland landforms I thought I knew well. Experiencing these bird’s eye views has helped me see more clearly and farther, and imagine new open space, even freedom, within the bounds of the bay. Especially from the overlooks at Caterpillar Hill in Sedgwick and Upper Bluff Road in Northport. The wide angles over the islands and salt water encompass earth and sky with a timelessness that feels eternal.  I tip my hat to one of my favorite living painters, David Hockney, and the documentary film A Bigger Picture, about him and his home places. Over the years his work has helped me look ever more closely at my own home. This exhibit is dedicated to my late husband Ryan King, who loved this bay too. His encouragement and belief in my work meant the world to me. These new paintings show me that I’m doing okay, and I’m gaining a new kind of perspective on this new life. Thank you for looking.”

Faragher was born and raised on the coast of Maine, studied art history and painting at Colby College and the University of Maine, and now lives and works as a professional painter in midcoast Maine. Her work is featured in Drawing New Audiences, Expanding Interpretive Possibilities: Artist-in-Residence Programs of the National Park Service (U.S Department of the Interior 2009), was selected for the 2011 Portland Museum of Art Biennial, is included in the book “Art of Acadia” by David Little and Carl Little (Down East Books 2016, 2023), and is in the Littles’ book “Art of Penobscot Bay” (Islandport Press 2023).  In 2021, she published a memoir about painting on Bear Island in Penobscot Bay, titled “Autobiography of an Island.”

Landing Gallery is at 409 Main St. in Rockland. Hours are noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and by appointment. The gallery is closed Monday, Tuesday and Sunday. For more information, call 207-239-1223, or email landinggallery@gmail.com. Follow the gallery on Facebook at Facebook.com/LandingGallery.