Monson Arts Gallery in Monson presents “Graven Images: Stone, Wood, Copper, Steel, Bone,” the first public exhibition in the United States of work by Maine artist and writer Michael Rothschild.
On view through Oct. 12, the exhibition brings together drawings, linocuts, copper etchings and sculptures in lead, stone and wood. Drawings that inspired etchings accompany the sculptures, revealing Rothschild’s process as ideas move from one medium to another.
The grain and character of wood and stone help guide the forms, which frequently depict human figures, particularly motherhood, alongside creatures of the sea, sky, rivers and land. Rothschild often works with materials found close at hand, including the deep black slate quarried in Monson.
Rothschild is the author of “Wondermonger,” a collection of modern tales and folklore set in the Maine woods. His visual work shares the vivid, mythic quality of his writing, moving through sketches, prints and sculpture as he develops a subject.
His work has previously been presented in lectures and displays in Beijing, Xi’an and Nanjing, China, and is held in private collections in the United States.
Born in Bangor, Rothschild has spent his adult life on a 200-year-old farm in the hills of western Maine. The farm is surrounded by an orchard of old-strain apple trees, including Baldwin, Wealthy and Deane varieties, where his extended family also raises Jersey cows and Suffolk sheep and maintains large gardens.
The choice of Monson for Rothschild’s first public U.S. exhibition has particular resonance because of his longtime use of the town’s slate. In exhibiting the finished sculptures there, the quarried stone returns to its place of origin in a transformed state.
Monson Arts Gallery is at 8 Greenville Road in Monson. “Graven Images” remains on view through Oct. 12. For more information, visit monsonarts.org.
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