Holly Meade, 2012

Some images are cropped; click on the thumbnail for the full image.

Holly Meade, Swimmer, linocut, 16' X 24"

Stand Jackson!, woodblock and linoleum print, 20" x 23"

Shaker Joy, woodblock and linoleum print, 23" x 32"

Raking With the Allis, woodblock and linoleum print, 32" x 24"

150 Working Days per Eagle, woodblock and linoleum print, 20" x 17"

Fins & Caps, woodblock and linoleum print, 23" x 20"

Old and Young, woodblock and linoleum print, 30" x 23"

Love Up to Here, woodblock and linoleum print, 38" x 18"

Transformation, woodblock and linoleum print, 23" x 18"

The Dress, woodblock and linoleum print, 37" x 23"

Buttering Up God, woodblock and linoleum print, 17" x 15"

The Mercy of God, woodblock and linoleum print, 22" x 38"

Diving Scoter, woodblock and linoleum print, 20" x 17"

Garden Wimples, woodblock and linoleum print, 16" x 20"

Angel Undercover as a Crow, woodblock and linoleum print, 8" x 6"

Muddy Pig, woodblock and linoleum print, 14" x 24"

Holy Trinity, woodblock and linoleum print, 18" x 48"

Blue Lobster, woodblock and linoleum print, 11" x 20"

The Jonathan Frost Gallery presents an exhibit of recent work by noted printmaker Holly Meade. The show, entitled Life, Inside and Out, opens on Friday, August 31^st. A gala Artist’s Reception will be held on Friday, September 7, Rockland’s First Friday, from 5 – 8, featuring live music by Steve Lindsay and Friends. The exhibit will run through October 3^rd.

Holly Meade lives and works in Sedgwick, Maine, where she operates her own home gallery, the Reach Road Gallery. She has concentrated on woodblock and linoleum block printing since taking a seminal 2002 workshop with printmaker Hester Stinnet at Philadelphia’s Tyler School of Art. “The way the personality of the wood participates in the image, the surface tension and inclination toward pattern it encourages, are aspects of this medium I find particularly engaging. There is a sort of elegant, raw honesty that comes through in woodblock prints,” says the artist. Her prints have been exhibited throughout New England and several are in the collection of the Portland Maine Museum of Art.

A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Meade also illustrates, and occasionally writes, children’s’ books. One of these, HUSH, A Thai Lullaby, written by Minfong Ho, received the Caldecott Honor award; another, John Willy and Freddy McGee, written and illustrated by Meade, received the Charlotte Zolotow Award for Creative Writing.

The exhibit at the Jonathan Frost Gallery includes about two dozen prints of a variety of subjects, ranging from a porcupine to the Holy Trinity. Many of Meade’s celebrated “critters” make an appearance, as well as her Maine-specific workers, and more recent images of a spiritual nature. All present the artist’s signature mastery of line and color. The show’s title, Life, Inside and Out, is adapted from a favorite quote of the artist’s by J. Winterson: “Art…its true effort is to open to us dimensions of the spirit that normally lie smothered under the weight of living.” Meade says, “I hope these prints represent the beauty of the everyday, as well as that which supports the everyday, the spirit.”

The prints are in limited editions. For pricing information, call the gallery at 207-596-0800.