For Immediate Release - February 16, 2022

Ogunquit, Maine—The Ogunquit Museum of American Art (OMAA) has announced its slate of exhibitions for the 2022 season, which takes place from Sunday, May 1 through Monday, October 31, 2022. This year, the galleries of the Museum will feature a variety of landscapes, sculpture, historic photography, political cartoons, and a dash of hopefulness.

The Museum opens May 1 with two exhibitions that continue through July 19: Josephine Halvorson: On the Ground; and Philip Koch: Isle of Dreams. The second half of the season opens on August 1 with two new exhibitions and continues through Oct. 31: Sue Miller: Personal Voyage; and John Walker: From Low Tide to High Tide.

In addition, six exhibitions will be open throughout the season, from May 1 to Oct. 31: Jim Morin: Drawing and Painting; Virginia Overton: Untitled (Cardinal C-80); The View from Narrow Cove; I’ll Bring the Luck with Me: Hunting and Fishing with Henry Strater; Robert Laurent: Open Studio; and Hopeful: A Project by Charlie Hewitt.

“The artists featured in the Museum this season have assembled incredible works in many mediums that reflect different views of American art,” said Amanda Lahikainen, PhD, Executive Director of Ogunquit Museum of American Art. “We are very excited to welcome our visitors this year to share in the beauty of the works of art as they are portrayed in our vibrant galleries.”

Josephine Halvorson: On the Ground  
Carol and Noel Leary Gallery 
May 1 – July 19, 2022

OMAA is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings by Josephine Halvorson (b. 1981, Brewster, Massachusetts) from the series, “On the Ground,” which is also the title of her essay published in Art in America (June/July 2018). Each work consists of two components: a central panel depicting a patch of ground seen from above and a frame that incorporates materials from the site where the interior painting was made. Crushed rocks and debris constitute evidence of a place, such as Maine, and screen-printed units of measurement and calibration operate as keys to perception, indicating scale, orientation, and color. Making art outside since her earliest days growing up on Cape Cod, Halvorson pushes against traditional landscape painting and conceptual land art with her practice which, as she has described, is to “translate dimensionality into flatness, mapping the transformation of the real into the realm of metaphor.”  

Philip Koch: Isle of Dreams 
Little Gallery 
May 1 – July 19, 2022

This spring, OMAA will present an exhibition of paintings and studies by Philip Koch (b. 1948, Rochester, New York), known for colorful, panoramic landscapes and an affinity with early modern American artists such as George Inness, Winslow Homer, Rockwell Kent, and Edward Hopper. Koch has been given unprecedented access to Hopper’s studio in Truro, Massachusetts, completing seventeen residencies there since 1983. In the Hudson River School artists, such as Thomas Cole and Frederic E. Church, Koch sees a reflection of his own appreciation of nature’s power and beauty. A selection of Koch’s recent work highlights the island as subject and symbol, and its reappearance, again and again, in his depictions of Maine locations, such as Isle au Haut and Ogunquit, and other places.

Jim Morin: Drawing and Painting 
Long Gallery 
May 1 – October 31, 2022

This season, OMAA is pleased to present the multi-faceted work of Jim Morin (b. 1953, Washington, DC). Best known as the distinguished editorial cartoonist for The Miami Herald for over 40 years, Morin is a longtime painter in oil and multiple Pulitzer Prize winner in journalism for his cartoons. He stands out among his peers by connecting the artistic process of working in these two different media, noting “My paintings affect my drawings and vice versa.” This exhibition features a selection of the artist’s drawings and paintings that spotlight the environment and landscape. Morin’s enduring concern for the planet and how varied human activities impact it over time emerges as particularly compelling within the broad spectrum of issues addressed in the more than ten thousand cartoons made over his career. His keen interest in this topic sustains and underlies many of his paintings, which celebrate the beauty of the natural world and reflect a sense of place that includes the landscape in Maine, and in Ogunquit where he now lives and works.  

Virginia Overton: Untitled (Cardinal C-80)  
Sculpture Garden
May 1 – October 31, 2022

OMAA is proud to present Untitled (Cardinal C-80) by Virginia Overton (b. 1971, Nashville, Tennessee) in its sculpture garden this season. Untitled (Cardinal C-80) is made from a steel frame stood on end to create an L-shape and inlaid with pieces of salvaged white marble. Previously used as a forklift glass carrier, the title references an industrial mark on the frame’s outer edge: “Cardinal C-80.” Through subtle and drastic interventions, Overton re-contextualizes once utilitarian items commonly associated with factories, farms, and construction. Often sourcing materials in the places where she works, Overton found the discarded steel carrier in the west end of Toronto, where the sculpture was first shown at Evergreen Brick Works in 2019.

The View from Narrow Cove 
Minnie S. Ireland Gallery and Barn Gallery 
May 1 – October 31, 2022

At the turn of the 20th century, urban artists in search of new subject matter found inspiration in this stretch of coastline, forming schools, then communities. The resulting contribution to the greater art world seemed beyond the scale of the once sleepy fishing village that made it possible. Artists affiliated with diverse chapters of American art history, such as the Federal Art Project (1935–1943) of the Works Progress Administration, the Armory Show of 1913, the Ashcan School of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and The Penguin (1917–1923) group in New York, came to work in Ogunquit, making connections and developing styles that would advance their work in Boston, New York, and beyond.  With selections ranging from the late 19th century to the present, The View from Narrow Cove draws primarily from the museum’s permanent collection and provides an overview of artists from the early years of Ogunquit’s artist colonies, including Charles H. Woodbury (1864-1940), Hamilton Easter Field (1873-1922), Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889-1953), and Rudolph Dirks (1877-1968), among others. 

I’ll Bring the Luck with Me: Hunting and Fishing with Henry Strater   
Henry Strater Gallery   
May 1 – October 31, 2022

A major theme for artist and OMAA founder Henry Strater (1896-1987) was what he called “the disorganized abundance of Mother Nature.” Strater was an avid hunter, fisherman, ‘polar bear’ swimmer, and adventurer. He kept pace with his friend Ernest Hemingway on globetrotting hunting and fishing expeditions, including the 1935 outing from Bimini rumored to have inspired Hemingway’s 1952 novel The Old Man and the Sea, from which this exhibition takes its title. In hunting themed still life paintings of the 1930s, as well as in flower filled coastal landscapes of the 1960s, Strater’s observations reflect his passion for outdoor activities and are rendered in a signature brushwork as bold as his lifestyle. Through paintings, historic photographs, and personal memorabilia, I’ll Bring the Luck with Me: Hunting and Fishing with Henry Strater examines the connection between his occupation as a painter and his life as a sportsman. This exhibition brings together diverse works from various periods of Strater’s oeuvre, including Goldeneye Drakes (1933), which appeared in OMAA’s inaugural 1953 season, and The Bait Stealers, painted in Florida in 1966.   

Robert Laurent: Open Studio   
Barn Gallery  
May 1 – October 31, 2022

Displayed in a re-creation of his studio in Cape Neddick, Maine, Robert Laurent: Open Studio presents drawings, paintings, and sculpture by Robert Laurent (1890-1970) and artists in his circle. This exhibition brings the personal side of his practice to the forefront and provides a glimpse into the space of his artistic production between 1922 and 1970. By highlighting his interactions with Hamilton Easter Field (1873-1922), Wood Gaylor (1883-1957), Bernard Karfiol (1886-1952), Elyot Henderson (1908-1975), and his son John Laurent (1921-2005), this installation examines Laurent’s role in the Ogunquit artist colonies and the ongoing impact of his teaching career and legacy.  

Hopeful: A Project by Charlie Hewitt
Entrance Gallery
May 1 – October 31, 2022

This season, OMAA is proud to participate in Hopeful: A Project by Charlie Hewitt. In 2019, Charlie Hewitt (b. 1946, Lewiston, Maine) was commissioned by Speedwell Projects, a nonprofit gallery in Portland, to create public art for its rooftop located at the nexus of five city neighborhoods. Hewitt installed a colorful and bright sign, lit with marquee lights and featuring a bold and simple message, “Hopeful.” The retro design is influenced by signs for roadside attractions recalling an earlier era. Hewitt collaborates with David Wolfe at Wolfe Editions in Portland on the design and with Neokraft Signs in Lewiston on fabrication. A commitment to working with local artisans and makers is central to Hewitt’s artistic practice. On January 20, 2021, Hewitt’s Hopeful sign in Lewiston appeared during the nationally televised Celebrating America event following the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. In addition to Portland and Lewiston, Hewitt has shown more Hopeful signs in Bangor and Brunswick, as well as in other cities and towns in Maine, and other states across the country.

Sue Miller: Personal Voyage
Little Gallery
August 1 – October 31, 2022

Sue Miller’s (b. 1939, New York, New York) visionary painting is inspired by many things. Pulling from interests that range from mythology and art history to a love of poetry and music, she creates work that is simultaneously abstract and representational. Having sailed most of her life, she’s informed by the memory of coastal landscapes, by light reflecting off water, and by nautical forms. But while the artist might draw upon direct observation, her paintings are essentially abstract, richly saturated with color and expressive in their intent. Some incorporate personal letters or marine charts and when a student sent her a picture of a Viking ship two years ago, the square shape of the sail became a launching point. “It was the shape lifted into motion that energized me,” she later remarked about thickly painted work into which she’s integrated fabric and wood. “Eventually the subject wasn’t a boat or a sail. Instead, it became part of my own personal voyage into the act of painting itself.” 

John Walker: From Low Tide to High Tide 
Carol and Noel Leary Gallery
August 1 – October 31, 2022

When John Walker (b. 1939, Birmingham, England) first visited Maine, he couldn’t paint landscape. “It was too pretty, too scenic—I felt I couldn’t do anything with it.” Known for emotionally charged abstract work, the artist draws upon personal history and his love of art. A cinched-waisted shape pays sincere homage to Goya’s The Duchess of Alba, and in the 1990s, he was inspired by that painter’s meditation on the disasters of war to make paintings about his father’s traumatic WWI experience. Following that, landscape made sense. Still determined not to paint pretty pictures, he concentrated on mud and debris left by outgoing tides and incorporated dirt into his medium, repeating observations made by other artists that “paint is only colored mud anyway.” And, perhaps mindful of the capricious nature of war as a game of chance, he recorded mercurial shifts of weather on discarded bingo cards in paintings that are nevertheless monumental in scope. But large or small, “Low Tide” works from the early 2000s uniformly reflect upon loss and a kind of inherited trauma that poet Rosanna Warren describes as “pressed from memory’s trench.” After years of looking down at pools and rivulets formed by outgoing tides, Walker’s mood unexpectedly shifted. “It used to be I could only paint when the tide was out,” he says. “Now it’s all about water coming in.” Lighter and more open, his more recent “High Tide” work captures the zigzag reflection of sun on fast moving water, generously communicating a renewed optimism in painting’s ability to take us to places we’ve not yet been.

Artist biographies, high-resolution images, and interviews can be provided upon request.

Media Contacts:

Kristen Levesque
(207) 329-3090
kristen@kristenlevesquepr.com

Mary Keith
(617) 512-7489
mmkeithma@gmail.com