Sondra Bogdonoff, “Circling Lines” (weaving in linen thread).

Line is a point moving on a surface or in the air.  It is the simplest mode of visual communication we have. Images, words, maps and plans all use line to tell us something.

Cove Street Arts presents “The Sensuous Line” group exhibit from June 23 to Aug. 6, featuring work by Sondra Bogdonoff, Pat Campbell, Avy Claire and Judith Daniels, as well as the show’s curator, Lissa Hunter.

“There are no lines in nature, only areas of color, one against another,” said Edouard Manet.

We humans create the line between those areas of color in our brains, as a way of discerning shape. If the lines remained, we could do without the colors, though we would be much poorer for the loss. We sense the lines that are not there.

Artists, of course, use line all the time to register what they see in sketches, to plan what they are creating in layouts, to simplify a form or to create mass and tone in drawing. Some use dry mediums, some wet mediums. Some use linear materials as the substance of their work. So long as the mark or element is longer than it is wide, we see it as a line.  

“In ‘The Sensuous Line,’ you will see line as thread, support, mark, stitch, object, information, cut, gesture, structure and plain old drawing,” Hunter says. “Something so simple communicates much when wielded by these 10 artists. It is hoped that after encountering this work you will see line in the world in a new way, in unexpected places as well as everyday contexts.”

See a preview of work in the show at www.covestreetarts.com/exhibitions-1/sensuousline.

Cove Street Arts is at 71 Cove St., Portland. Call 207-808-8911 or email info@covestreetarts.com for more information.