Inside Maine’s Burgeoning Art Scene

Alongside its gorgeous landscape, Maine has another, sometimes overlooked appeal as a cultural hotspot. This isn’t new: painter Winslow Homer lived there; poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a native; so, of course, is Stephen King, who created an entire fictional universe based on various Downeast locales. The lure of the place, its grandeur and mystery, has beckoned artists for generations—including the current one, which is answering in a more ambitious way than ever before. This fall, seasonal leaf-peepers would be well advised to stop off at some of the cutting-edge exhibition spaces and creative incubators scattered from Kittery to Bangor, and to meet the people writing the next chapter of Maine’s artistic history.

Portland Museum of Art

As the flagship cultural institution in Maine’s largest city, the Portland Museum of Art has to maintain a cosmopolitan outlook while keeping in touch with its local roots. To meet that challenge, the museum has brought on a forward-thinking curatorial team—including one of its most recent additions, Sayantan Mukhopadhyay, who arrived in Maine last year from Los Angeles. His debut show as the new assistant curator of modern and contemporary art, entitled “As We Are,” opens October 11, and it shows the museum’s mission in action: the 14 featured artists come from diverse backgrounds, but all share a deep connection to Maine.

“‘As We ARE’ includes work across various media, from painting to photos, and it’s the first group show we’ve had here in a while,” Sayantan Mukhopadhyay explained. “Really I think of it as a look into the state of American contemporary art as seen through a regional lens. More and more, the museum is being integrated into broader conversations with creatives throughout the city and the state—becoming a part of these existing communities of support, these networks of support and care. So many of the curators here are new, Maine transplants like me. That’s complicated because Mainers have such a huge sense of belonging and identity. So you have to be sensitive to that. But there really is a feeling of growth and expansion.”

Hogfish

Like its namesake—a snout-nosed little guy, not actually common to Maine’s waters—Hogfish is an oddball: the four-year-old residency program, founded by couple Matt and Edwin Cahill, is located partially in Portland proper and partially at their historic home nearby, and it focuses on what the duo calls “regenerative arts,” an attempt to fuse ecology and creative endeavor. The highlight of its annual programming consists of summer performances that combine the skills and interests of its 15-20 participants, but visitors can find Hogfish functions happening other times of year as well, like this fall’s “Grief Ritual,” a community healing ceremony for locals affected by the region’s recent severe storms.

“Edwin and I both always dreamt of having an art space that didn’t care what it was—musical theater; opera; food—everything is always kept in these boxes, and that didn’t make any sense to us,” Matt Cahill said. “When we stumbled on our house, Beckett’s Castle, it took our breath away, and as I was falling in love with Maine I kept wondering how we could make art and stories that are part of preserving and regenerating this landscape and its culture. Hogfish was the answer. So for example we have our annual “Kegs and Roses” event, which combines beer from the Allagash Brewery with local food, and our artists performing something connected to nature, to the garden and the ocean that we have here. It’s all inspired by place.”

Ogunquit Museum of American Art

Located just across the New Hampshire border, the six-decade-old Ogunquit is one of the state’s first collecting institutions for modern and contemporary art, with extensive holdings of celebrated Mainers such as Peggy Bacon and Marsden Hartley. The latter was part of the reason that Devon Zimmerman, now the museum’s associate curator of modern art, came aboard two years ago, relocating to Maine after working on a Hartley show in his previous job at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since his arrival, he’s helped organize exhibitions including the current “Domestic Modernism” show on the work of Maine native Russel Cheney, open through November 17.

“For a museum of its scale, the Ogunquit just has such a remarkable collection of early 20th-century American art,” Devon Zimmerman explained. “Part of my role, I think, has been to try to situate the institution in a national and international framework of people and artistic relationships—to show why artists come to this portion of Maine, the stimuli and social constructs around that artistic community. Even in just the last two and half years, you’ve seen an exponential growth in the strength of the arts here. The infrastructure was already present pre-Covid; but when the pandemic re-shifted the kind of spaces artists were living and working in, that infrastructure very quickly made Maine a very hospitable place to do creative work.”

Ellis-Beauregard Foundation

As a former director of the Maine Arts Commission, Donna McNeil was already a well-known figure in the state’s arts community when it was announced, in 2017, that she would be the inaugural director of Rockland’s Ellis-Beauregard Foundation. The organization—named for its late founders, artists Joan Beauregard and David Ellis—supports a multi-pronged program including grants, prizes, exhibitions, and a residency initiative, portions of which will soon be housed in an attractive new facility designed by New York– and Maine–based Baird Architects. Visitors to the mid-state coastal town are invited to stop by for First Fridays, a monthly event where foundation residents open their studios to the public.

“The only criterion for our residency program is artistic excellence,” McNeil explained. “I think not having a particular kind of practice as a connecting thread has been an advantage—our residents tell us they love the cross-fertilization of different disciplines, different ages. One of our residents was Reggie Burrows Hodges: he was a middle-aged guy who’d had a film and music career, and who wound up living in a small apartment in Lewiston, Maine. He didn’t have a gallery or representation; when he exhibited during one of our First Fridays, he was charging $50 for his paintings. Now he’s selling at places like Sotheby’s. Beyoncé and the Obamas are collecting him. Maine is a place where you can find people like that. It’s a place people escape to.”