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Work by Hélène Farrar.

Join Archipelago, Island Institute’s store and gallery for “Poetry of Place,” a show of encaustic paintings by Hélène Farrar. Encaustic painting is an ancient painting technique developed in Egypt that combines beeswax, damar resin and pigments to give it color.

“These paintings represent part of a year’s work devoted to exploring the landscape surrounding and reaching beyond Manchester and Rockland, Maine.”

Of her work Farrar says: “Drawing from my memory, printed resources and studio process, I engaged with place as a structure to play, to scrape, reapply, draw into and splatter the ancient of encaustic (hot, beeswax paint). These places are known to me intimately as I walked, sat with and lingered in them repeatedly. My hope is that you can ‘sit with’ these paintings yourself and find them as a means to meditate.”

Farrar is a Maine-based American artist who works primarily in the ancient medium of encaustic. Her colorful paintings draw themes from the natural world and her observations of it, and they have a depth and luminousness achieved through careful attention to texture and surface quality. She considers her work part of a conversation about humanity, beauty and nature.

She recently located to Rockland with her husband, college-heading daughter and a sassy cat. She has a studio in Tenants Harbor, with an ever-evolving ocean view.

Join us in the gallery from 5 to 7 p.m. Aug. 1 to meet the artists and share good food, drink and conversations as part of Rockland’s First Friday Art Walk. The show will be on display in the gallery until Aug. 31.

Located at 386 Main Street in downtown Rockland, Archipelago features artists who work with natural, coastal and working waterfront themes inspired by living and creating art in Maine.

Both the store and gallery are currently open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call 207-596-0701 or go to www.thearchipelago.net for more information.