Maine, as we know, is a dramatically diverse state – topographically, politically, economically, etc. Artists who paint, photograph, video and otherwise depict Maine are just as variegated, which makes it endlessly interesting to see how widely varied their views are and what subject matter calls their attention.
Three current shows display distinctly different takes on life in the state. They range from classic Maine sea- and landscapes at Moss Galleries in Falmouth (“Robert Wieferich: Deep in the Woods, ” through March 16) to decidedly odd and slightly surreal photography at Dowling Walsh in Rockland (the work of two young artists, “S.B. Walker: Winter Apples” and “Dylan Hausthor: Foxgloves Down the Road from the Pickup That Has a Dead Battery, ” both through March 30).
Freeport painter Wieferich mines a longstanding artistic vein in this state. That is, painting seascapes and landscapes that capture Maine’s unique coastal light. This venerable tradition extends at least to the 19th century and is, arguably, what most people identify (rightly or wrongly) as its claim to fame on the national art scene. Which is why I have always had reservations about reviewing shows of this genre. Frankly, to paraphrase a bizarre 19th-century idiom, you can’t swing a dead cat in the Pine Tree State without hitting a Maine landscape/seascape painter.
But there is something almost thrilling about Wieferich’s take on these themes. To my surprise, I felt my heart quicken as I viewed a dozen of his scenes of rocky coasts, rivers and forests, my mood becoming suddenly buoyant. It had everything to do with Maine’s signature light (which was especially welcome on a drizzly cold February evening) and the way it interacts with rocks, water, trees and shadow.
Wieferich’s works are unabashedly beautiful in their familiarity, and their apricity is more palpable here than in any similar scenes I’ve seen in recent memory. The title painting focuses in on a lichen- flecked boulder in the woods. The way light filters through the tree canopy and falls upon the boulder and the roots of an adjacent tree is, quite simply, masterful. It is perhaps the best painting in which to observe the tremendous nuance required to depict light and shadow in a way that one can actually feel throughout all five senses.
The sunlit sections of rock contain a mass of white color values, as well as golds, grays and rosy pinks. Areas in shadow contain many hues of blue, lavender, peach, pink and gray. From a distance, this subtlety is imperceptible. Y et what it conveys is so effective that we not only visually perceive the play of light and shadow, but also smell the moist loam of the forest, reflexively squint from the intermittent stabs of light hitting our retina as it penetrates the leaves, hear the breeze and the birds, and taste the fresh astringency of pine and mustiness of leaves decaying on the forest floor.
Paintings such as “Trout Water” and “Early Morning, Fall Day” excel at the way light reflects off river water, the mirror effects obscuring everything beneath the surface, while areas left in shadow reveal the muddy floor under the ripples. “Trout Water,” is particularly skillful in the way Wieferich achieves this fluid oscillation between reflection and transparency. Again, viewing these is a multi-sensual experience. W e can hear the river currents trickle and rush, feel and taste the water’s icy freshness, and touch the scratchy rust of the iron bridge spanning the stream.
Wieferich also does something I’ve rarely seen. Many artists have painted white caps and the foam of waves crashing on rocks. But Wieferich prefers to depict the aftermath of these phenomena, when the wave has rushed back out to sea, leaving little bubbles of foam in its wake that sparkle on transparent water, as in “Washed Out Bridge. ”
What I found most intriguing is the understanding this painter has that to achieve this degree of multisensory perception – in texture, light, shadow, sound, taste – what is needed is not, counterintuitively, photorealism. While these are instantly recognizable depictions of locations, they’re clearly not realistic enough to trick the eye into thinking of them photographically. This is something the Impressionists intimately understood. But it’s not Impressionism, either. These paintings hover somewhere in the middle. In so doing, they are evocative in ways that other artists would kill to emulate.
J o r g e S . A r a n g o h a s w r i t t e n a b o u t a r t , d e s i g n a n d a r c h i t e c t u r e f o r o v e r 3 5 y e a r s . H e l i v e s i n P o r t l a n d .
