Dowling Walsh Gallery features new work by artists Rachel Gloria Adams and Joanna Logue in October exhibitions

Dowling Walsh Gallery will present solo exhibitions of new work by artists Rachel Gloria Adams and Joanna Logue from Oct. 6 to 28. A public opening reception celebrating the shows will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Oct. 6.

Both exhibitions are debut presentations for the artists at the gallery. 

Rachel Gloria Adams is a multi-disciplinary artist who works across mediums, creating paintings, murals, quilts, and graphic and textile designs. She brings a passion for dynamic color combinations and bold, clear patterns to all her work. The striking abstract compositions of her recent pieced and sewn textile works honor the celebrated quilts of the women of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. For the artist, “they serve as a way of piecing together memories within an heirloom framework.” Her latest paintings draw inspiration from the Maine landscape, combining the beauty of plant forms with the color and movement of the ocean. 

Adams received her BFA from Maine College of Art in 2015. She has shown her work in exhibitions throughout Maine, including the 2023 Biennial Exhibition at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. In 2022, Adams received a David C. Driskell Fellowship and Black Seed Studio Residency at Indigo Arts Alliance. She has also attended residencies at Speedwell Projects and the Stephen Pace House. In addition to her studio practice, Adams maintains a textile design business, TACHEE, and with her husband, artist Ryan Adams, has created numerous public art murals, including a recent large-scale commission for the Farnsworth Art Museum. She lives in Portland, where she serves as a board member for Space Gallery.

Joanna Logue paints richly textured, color-saturated paintings of the Maine landscape. She moved to the state from her native Australia in 2017, settling in a small village on Mount Desert. In this relatively short time, Logue has come to know the island landscape intimately through her extensive hikes into the hidden corners of its woods, marshes, and mountains. Like John Marin and John Walker, two artists she admires, her paintings balance on the knife edge between abstraction and representation. Nature is presented close-up, encompassing and challenging, reflecting the changing light and colors of the seasons. She says, “My paintings need to be tough and innovative but soft and seductive at the same time.” Using various painting tools to animate each area of the composition, she extends the image beyond its edges — a reminder that we are seeing just a piece of the much larger whole. 

Logue was born in the Hunter Valley in North South West Australia and graduated from the City Art Institute in Sydney with a BA in Visual Arts and a Graduate Diploma in Painting. She has had twenty-two solo exhibitions and has exhibited extensively throughout Australia and internationally. Logue received the Country Energy Prize for Landscape Painting in 2006 and the Central West Regional Artist Award in 2009. In 2014, she was awarded a residency in Bruny Island, Tasmania. Her work is in significant corporate, private, and public collections. Logue works on Mount Desert Island in Maine and from her Essington Park, Australia studio.

Dowling Walsh Gallery is at 365 Main St. in Rockland. The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and by appointment on Sundays and Mondays. Visit www.dowlingwalsh.com, or c all 207-596-0084 for more information.