This exhibition weaves together two series of work, which each aim to explore my relationship with the Maine landscape through non-rectilinear paintings. We live in a circle, not in a line, and I want to evoke both the winding paths we take through the forest and through life itself. Through round and oblong forms, I seek to draw the viewer into the landscape and the wonderment I encounter within it.

Henderson’s Functional Disparities, as he calls the works in this exhibition, often begin with deceptively simple visual parallels. On closer inspection, however, the subjects of these forms can be radically different, juxtaposing natural and cultural forms.  Together, they generate deep questions about what we deem natural, evolved, or adapted features and behaviors.

Winter prompts us to look inward, to the textures and materials of the home, as well as the body itself. In works conjured from primal materials like wood, fur, fiber, and wax, subtle notes of sensuality appear in these works. Amidst the austerity of winter there’s an invitation to revel in the supple warmth of bare skin.

New England artists explore the feeling of hygge amidst the winter chill. Participating artists: Kimberly Callas, Alison Dibble, Dan Dowd, Grace Hager, Alanna Hernandez, Allegra Kuhn, John Woodruff, Sue Michlovitz, Amanda Millis, and Caroline Sulzer.

Dark night dark light

There are two darknesses.

And there is darkness. And there is light.

~Improvisation by the artist

“My father was an Episcopal minister. When I was a boy I liked to look at the altar cloths in his church and think about how I might design them. I noticed that throughout the year the colors of the cloths would change depending on the religious calendar. Some weeks the linens were green, others red then purple and so on. Although these paintings aren’t intended to be religious I wonder if my early experience in my father’s church was an influence.”

Breazeale’s multidisciplinary practice interweaves alternative process photography, installation, and fiber art while emphasizing the importance of material storytelling and sustainability. Drawing upon their identity as a queer, Jewish adoptee from Peru, they seek to foster a dialogue around diaspora, cultural resilience, and sacred interspecies relations.

Cinnamon draws upon her Jewish heritage and her experience growing up as the child of Holocaust survivors.  Mending is a prevailing theme in Cinnamon’s works, both in the pursuit of social justice and spiritual healing.  It is also a recurring motif in the way she approaches material, frequently involving stitching, grafting, and assembling found materials from nature.

The Parsonage is proud to host the first solo exhibition by Güler Ates in the United States. Ates’ work explores a constellation of themes, including diasporic experience, the ambiguities of domestic space, and the tragic legacies of colonialism. She is best known for her photographs of mysterious figures in shimmering veils, drifting ambivalently through historic spaces. The exhibition is made possible through the generous sponsorship of DG Art Project in Istanbul.

In the face of drastic climate change, including rising and warming oceans, That Queer Fish imagines a not-so-distant future in which land creatures undergo transformative adaptations in order to thrive underwater. Rooted in queer ecological theory, this body of work invites viewers to explore a world where hybridization becomes a radical act of survival, blurring the boundaries between species and challenging normative notions of identity and habitat.

Summer J. Hart explores the balance between extractive and sustainable approaches to nature. Made primarily from abandoned newsprint sourced from the ruins of the East Millinocket paper mill, Hart’s drawings and installations variously combine recycled, reclaimed, remade, and commercially made paper, ink, and water. The show’s title evokes the spring-to-fall season of the river drives that, for generations, moved thousands of trees from the forest of northern Maine, down the Penobscot River, to the factories in which timber was pulped, bleached, and milled into paper.

“My practice seeks to alleviate daily doldrums and spiritless ways of living. I gift these works to the viewer as an optimistic nudge towards joy, connection and a playful awareness of how the larger world could be.”

This exhibition of Grace DeGennaro’s sublime series, ‘Platonic Solids,’ is as subtle and profound philosophically as it is formally, interpreting the ancient philosopher’s ideas about the structure of our world into breathtaking color.

“In the spring of 2019, I set off for Sicily, attempting to understand what touches 3.3 billion Christians (of whom 1.3 billion are Catholics) during their Holy Week of penitence, mourning and joy.  I chose the hill towns of Sicily, where rituals dating back  as much as 1000 years are still practiced.   I was not disappointed, though at times I was uneasy.” — Jack Montgomery

Annual winter group show featuring Parsonage artists + guest artists including Sarah Faragher (work pictured), Joshua Ferry, Grace DeGennaro, Jack Montgomery, Van Bankston, Dean McCrillis, Jean Wiecha & Grant Akiyama.

Sea Watch is a new media installation that reflects on the socio-political contexts and responses to the current Mediterranean migration crisis. Constructed from news media coverage and documentation footage from the actual incident, the work seeks to create a contemplative space not only considering the event in question, but more importantly, the humanitarian issues and ethical debates surrounding Europe's present policies concerning migration and border security.

“Blue is the color of most things medical: gloves, gowns, and handicapped parking spaces. It is the color of the Virgin Mary, the sky, cold hands, and depression. Blue is infrequent in nature—less than 10 percent of flowers in nature are technically blue. Blue is the hardest color for the human eye to perceive.” — S. Billie Mandle

Community Garden brings together photographs and film to explore food equity, solidarity, and restorative approaches to landscape. These issues were drawn into sharp focus by the racially motivated mass-shooting at the Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York, the artist’s home city. Monakhov Stockton’s photographs from Buffalo contextualize the city’s divisions through an exploration of its social topography.

Theologians and art historians have long underestimated the power of the everyday. This blind spot bears witness to a long tradition of undervaluing the labor and experiences of women and other marginalized groups. By lifting up objects and rituals long derided as ‘women’s work,’ Anne Mourier awakens us to new and forgotten vocabularies and sensibilities. Paying mindful attention to what we’re doing, whatever we’re doing, can be a mode of resistance.

Annual summer show of Parsonage artists with guests artists John Descarfino, Aude Hérail Jäger, and David Matson.

Ian Trask transforms waste materials into objects and installations with new purpose.  In a digitally saturated world, Trask has a taste for analog relics. The objects he repurposes are not merely recycled to assuage consumer guilt or resurrected to feed nostalgia.  In works like Portal, Trask suggests new ways of producing—or better yet discovering—value.  Discarded, overlooked objects recombine and reassemble to beautiful effect, reminding us that nothing is intrinsically or immutably worthless.

Katz’s sculptures are profound meditations on the stuff of creation, assembled out of objects with “the smell of the earth” still on them, as he puts it. What might seem like unorthodox assemblages in fact speak to the way the Hebrew Bible is pieced together. Each of Katz’s assemblages tackles a different portion of Torah, the Five Books of Moses. Fittingly, each interpretation is set within an old wooden box, suggesting that every story, provides a sort of home, or sanctuary.