August 19, 09

Pheobe Bly and Rachel Burgess

August 19 through September 12
Opening Reception: Friday August 19, 5:30- 8:00

On Wednesday, August 19, from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m., the Jonathan Frost Gallery in Rockland will host the opening reception for a two-woman show featuring the paintings of Phoebe Bly and the monoprints of Rachel Burgess. Pianist Steve Lindsay will play jazz and blues.

Gallery owner Jonathan Frost has paired these two artists because he considers their work lyrical. He explains: “The lines, brushstrokes, and major forms tend to be long, like lines of a song; represented forms and details are arranged to fit poignantly within a relatively simple shape or pattern of shapes; and there is the feeling of intimate personal experience.”

Phoebe Bly grew up in Tenants Harbor, where she still lives. She studied photography at the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport, and for a while she had her own darkroom. When she moved and had to give up her darkroom, she started painting “out of desperation.” “It clicked,” she says, and she has been painting steadily for nine years.

Bly says of her work, “I paint only what strikes me viscerally, whether it’s a newly leafed tree or a factory at night. . . . For me the ultimate goal is to be able to pass on that initial feeling of wonder that drove me to paint the scene in the first place. Basically it’s just a glorified way to say ‘Hey, look at that!’”

Rachel Burgess lives in New York. She grew up in Massachusetts and spent summers in Maine with her family. As an English major at Columbia she studied English and American folk ballads. As a graduate student at the School of Visual Arts, and subsequently, she has illustrated several of those ballads or used their imagery and themes in her work.

The twelve pieces of Burgess’ work featured in the present show are monoprints with chine collé. Chine collé is the technique of adhering paper (originally, thin Chinese paper) to heavier printmaking paper as the paper and monotype plate are passed through the etching press. The glued-on paper provides areas of flat color, over which more nuanced forms are printed. Most of the images on display are of the Maine coast; three are of Lake Ponchartrain, whose waters flooded New Orleans a few years ago. Burgess visited the lake while doing background work for a narrative series based on the ballad “The Lakes of Ponchartrain.”

The “Bly and Burgess” show will stay up through September 12. The Jonathan Frost Gallery is located at 21 Winter Street in Rockland. Hours are 9 to 5, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; open until 8 p.m. Wednesdays. For more information call 596-0800.