Currently On View
April 5, 2024 - June 30, 2024
Harlan Crichton, THAT WAS FUN! RE:DEUX!
In 2018, I learned there is a pyramid in North Dakota. Abandoned since 1976, this monolithic Cold War radar station stands outside of a small farming community. I became fascinated by this structure and theorized about its longevity. If there was an apocalyptic event, or a loss of historic knowledge, what would future generations make of such a structure? What about the mountains of single use plastic containers? Would they create myths to explain their existence and how would those stories affect their reality? With this mind, I began photographing at historically significant locations such as the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas. Many of these locations, and their associated conspiracy theories, have firmly embedded themselves into our national discourse. I began to experiment with lasers as a means of capturing the malleability of these theories. In my pitch-dark studio I double expose expired large format slide film using lasers shot through a prism, and mask the film using magnets, plant material and my body. The double-exposures create unexpected colors and markings, transforming the film into unique objects. The original images are obscured and abstracted, though recognizable forms can be found if one searches. This is my attempt to understand my life and my country through the dubious narratives I was raised on.
Harlan Crichton was born in 1990 and was raised in a rural community of artists in Liberty, Maine. He graduated from Maine College of Art and Design (MECA&D)with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography in 2012. In 2013 Crichton embarked on a 13,000 mile motorcycle trip across the United States, after which he lived in Northern Idaho where spent time working as a beekeeper. In 2020 Crichton graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design with a Masters of Fine Art (MassArt) in Photography. Since obtaining his gradate degree Crichton has returned to MECA&D and MassArt to teach both film and digital photography to undergraduate students. Crichton’s work is currently in the collection at The PhotobookMuseum in Cologne, Germany. Crichton currently lives and works in Westbrook, Maine.
Past Exhibitions
January 12, 2024 - March 31, 2024
Jasmine Parsia, More Like Water
More Like Water presents a new body of work by Jasmine Parsia. This collection of monotypes, paper weavings, and collages consider themes of language and communication, materiality, transference, and chance. Created through a ritual of repetition, imagery and symbols are translated from one process to another, accumulating new meaning, understanding, and memory as they echo across each piece. Tides recede and return. Rivers find their way around stones. Clarity comes and goes. Shaped by the spiral of making and remaking.
Jasmine Parsia (b. 1989) is an Iranian-American artist based in Burlington, Vermont.
October 6, 2023 - January 10, 2024
Shon Mahoney, EYE SEE
‘Eye See’ is a body of work made while my body was in recovery. I made this work as an acknowledgement of and an offering to the Interconnected web of beings who have essentially saved my life and shown me much care and compassion in the process. - Sarva Mangalam
Shon Mahoney, Since 1981
June 23, 2023 - October 6, 2023
Margaret Rizzio, Fruit Eyes and Other Alterations
Artist Margaret Rizzio graduated from Bennington College in Vermont with a BA in visual arts followed by an MFA from Purchase College in New York. After finishing school Margaret returned home to Maine the place she was born, raised and has always loved. Margaret uses a wide range of mediums, including collage and assemblage, to embrace feminism and the passage of time. She creates diverse pieces filled with coincidences and synchronistic repeating elements. In this new series of work Rizzio humorously alters found ephemera to breathe new life into objects that might otherwise be lost.
February 15, 2020 – June 22, 2023
Bryan Graf, Reflected Projections Projecting Reflections
* This collaboration between Bryan Graf and North Optical is currently on hiatus.
Reflected Projections Projecting Reflections is a modular installation composed of a slide projector, mirrors, and transparency slides of screen material cut down from the scraps of large geometric abstractions. These images are then amplified via the slide projector mounted to one wall and a corresponding grid of mirrors on the wall opposite the projector – reflecting back images to the source of their projection. The slides are on an endless loop. The self-timer is usually synchronized to change slides based on the average interval at which we blink our eyes.
Playlists:
Reflected Projections Projecting Reflections Vol. 1
Reflected Projections Projecting Reflections Vol. 2
January 3, 2023 - June 17, 2023
Kristina Buckley, The Sky is a Portal
Starting at your feet and extending approx. 300 miles upward. How do you relate the sky? Is it a mirror? Doorway? Vessel? A vast & open tract? Familiar & unknown? Ever expanding & all-encompassing in our mind’s eye. The sky is a portal- a series of Risograph prints as seen from below.
Kristina Buckley ( TwoFern ) is a printmaker / illustrator / publisher of sorts, living and working in Portland, Maine. Since receiving her BFA in printmaking at the Maine College of Art in 2015, they have been an engaged member at Pickwick Independent Press community printshop.
October 7, 2022 - January 3, 2023
Hector Nevarez Magaña, Bad Advice
These photographs are excerpts from an ongoing search for semblances of truth that afford me comfort without proper warning. Everything falls short of everything. The salvation once promised to me in confidence is now orchestrating my demise; a consequence of bad advice.
Hector is a Mexican-American photographer from East Palo Alto, California. He earned his BA in Visual Arts from Bowdoin College in 2016 and then moved to Portland, Maine, where he co-founded New System Exhibitions, an artist-run exhibition space dedicated to emerging regional artists. His work is primarily shot on roll film and printed on silver gelatin (when he has time and money) and has been shown at Dowling Walsh Gallery, New System Exhibitions, and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art.
July 1, 2022 - September 31, 2022
Sophie Cangelosi, Still Blooming
We stopped at the roses and got out of our fear. Like soaking in the answers to our questions, we stick our faces in. Heaviness is honeyed as long as the flowers are still blooming.
Sophie Cangelosi (b. 1993) is a multidisciplinary visual artist living and working in Rockland, Maine. Since receiving her BFA from Maine College of Art, she has exhibited her work across the US.
March 20, 2022 - July 1, 2022
Corey Jennings, JOEDYS KOZYREV MIRROR’S
Plane Fighting 35 years (Your life is what You make of it) - Get Yourself together more and FREE - Fair Solution - Magick Thinking Worldwide for proper embedding into the larger array.
Special Note or ** :
Photostar Born Wrong Item on loan from C.H.K.P. Studios Portland, ME
August 6, 2021 - March 20, 2022
Kincaid Pearson, Waves
Waves features paintings from Kincaid Pearson and pieces from collaborations with Naomi Russo. Waves is an aesthetically forward-leaning exploration of lines and the way those lines can portray movement. Living in the coastal city of Portland, waves are an everyday sight. The show takes the subconscious feeling of living in a coastal area and making work that gives that same sense of motion with the abstraction of these waves that are so predominant in our lives.
October 2019 – February 2020
Rosa Unearthly Goods®
July 2019 – October 2019
Ty Williams, Risograph Print Portfolio with Wing Club Press
April 2019 – July 2019
Christy Armstrong, Automatic Drawings
November 2018 – April 2019
Will Sears, Assemblage
Other Collaborations
October 31, 2022
Dylan Hausthor, VITREOUS HUMOR
A spooky newspaper-style publication in collaboration with Dylan Hausthor, Fresh Pickins Farm and North Optical. Utilizing medium format photography and VHS screen captures, Dylan, created haunting imagery for this limited run of 200 available for free at North Optical.