exhibitions

Favorite Places

Susan Dowley

October 2024 - December 2024

Susan Dowley of Hope, Maine is a representational painter working in oil, pastel, and gouache. Originally from Syracuse, New York, Susan began her career as an artist after graduation from Beloit College with an art major. Susan first came to Maine when she was 14. For 3 years in her late twenties, Susan spent from early June through mid November painting alone on the Bold Coast. That experience informed and became the foundation for her profession as an artist. She has painted coastal Maine for most of her adult life. Dowley has exhibited her art in numerous group and one person shows in New England and New Brunswick, Canada. She has taught art extensively through workshops, Elderhostel, adult education, and public education for over 25 years. 

Thunder Moon

Charles Duvall

Friday, July 5—Sept 30, 2024

In this installation, Maine artist Charles Duvall presents his new series of welded steel sculptures whose swirling curvilinear geometries each have a distinct life of its own. Fundamentally defined by curlicues, knots, and  blossoms, each explores a personal vision of the artist . Brought together in the gallery’s Steelhouse South space, these works form a meditation on the empty mind, the full moon, and on our relationship with the surrounding untamed ocean landscape.

The steel structures were created with the Steel House Gallery space in mind. Charles bent 3/4 inch OD mild steel solid rod using a manual Diacro 4 ratchet prototyping bender. Mild steel is low carbon and relatively ductile. The structures sit on pink Deer Isle granite and are painted with Gamblin Artist’s Oils which have luscious working properties.  Each color possesses unique characteristics in terms of texture, undertone, and tinting strength. The range of colors includes both historically accurate paints and modern, synthetically derived hues. Most are made with alkali-refined linseed oil as a binder, which creates a strong, flexible paint film and yellows significantly less than cold press linseed oil, the traditional binder in oil paints. Select colors use safflower oil as a binder. Not only are these vegetable oils completely non-toxic, but they are also used in health and beauty products, so you can trust in their safety.

Alewife Running

Chip Barchilon & Annika Early

Fri, Oct 6—Nov 18, 2023

Chip Barchilon (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist who re-imagines agency within altered structures of power. Drawing from fairy tales, ecology, and mycology, Barchilon’s work responds to past and present stories of place and pushes against the structures of power embedded within these histories. Through sculpture and works on paper, they create atmospheres of eerie beauty that prompt both enchantment and inquiry. Barchilon is a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program at Maine College of Art & Design and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Barnard College of Columbia University. They have been supported by the George Van Amson Fellowship and SPACE Gallery’s American Rescue Plan Grant.

Annika Earley (she/her) makes intimate drawings, paintings, and prints about transformation, in-between states, and the experience of being a woman. She often uses German folktales as reference points in her work. Earley holds an MFA from Maine College of Art and an M.Phil from College of the Atlantic.
She has been a resident at the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation in Rockland, ME, Hewnoaks Artist Colony in Lovell, ME, Monson Arts in Monson, ME, Pace House Residency in Stonington, ME, the Walkaway House in North Adams, MA and will be in residence at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland in 2024.
Earley has been supported by the St. Botolph Foundation in Boston, MA, the New York Foundation for the Arts, The Albert K, Murray Fund, and SPACE Gallery’s American Rescue Plan Grant. Earley’s work is in the collections of the University of Southern Maine and the College of the Atlantic. Her work has been most recently exhibited at Zero Station in Portland, Maine.