Currently On View
October 5, 2025 - January 2026
Glen Baldridge, WRECKED EXOTICS
North Optical is pleased to present Glen Baldridge’s Wrecked Exotics, a suite of eighteen artist framed risograph prints and an accompanying artist’s book. All display printmaking techniques developed in Baldridge’s many years of studio experimentation. The framed works depict eighteen red sports cars arrested in flight; stopped dead by vegetation. Eighteen days and eighteen ways of wrong: they retrace final frames to an end game. The website of the same name indexed 4967 Ferraris wrecks as I last checked, from over 105 unique brands memorialized on the site. While perusing, I glean the predominance of the color red. Tempted to scrape and analyze all estimated 40GB of the site’s image data just to prove it, I reach for a tendril of that futile revving to churn power at scale.
Glen Baldridge’s Exotics are mementos to a chosen set of wasted classics: a Ferrari Testarossa, a Corvette... The scale is small: glimpsed moments, an intimate pocket size for a coveting voyeur. I am reminded of Carlo Mollino’s Polaroids, in nod to a link between the provocative stagings of lovers in moody constructed dollhouses, smudging objectification, and Mollino’s deep love for Bisiluro Damolnar, the red Le Mans car that he designed and built in 1955. I look for it in Baldridge’s wrecks: the seedy whiff of bodies intertwined in a thwarted need for speed, muffled to a halt by mundane bushes.
The means reinforce the object. Baldridge carries intent through his craft, and he lets the classic Riso 390UI’s speed of color separation lacerate the images. Rotating drums tread linear tracks over mis-registered blurs, aping skid marks. The effect, created by not letting the ink fully dry between each of three color passes, lends each of these anti-mutts an unreal, smeared halo. Not unlike Baldridge’s Lucky Sevens--a series of coffins printed as scratch-off tickets--the ruined vehicles become stamped vessels to a disconnected plane.
While Riso inks, made from vegetable oils like soy and rice bran, are generally considered non-toxic, the automotive paint of a crashed circa-80’s sports car might contain exotic cocktails of lead, cadmium, isocyanates, chromium, bromine and other rarities. What animals will lick these shredded gems as they stand to be discovered; ever unripe lurid hulls, habitats for further mutated species flirting with extinction? There is a playful celebration in many of Baldridge’s earlier works: his figure skaters in pratfall; the glorious disaster of The End's Not Near It's Here. It is the excess hubris and futility of that ‘me against the world’ feeling. These coffins are empty; there is no prize; only thin red ink fading on the beauty of fragile paper. – Aude Jomini
Glen Baldridge (b.1977, Nashville, TN) is an accomplished painter, printmaker, and draftsman who frequently embeds text phrases into ultra-complex painted patterns. Often working with traditional craft processes like paper marbling, he obscures the words’ readability with a deft hand. Recurring phrases like “No Way”, and “Wait, What” invoke a detached attitude countered by a colorful palette, speaking to attempts to navigate the unpredictable conditions of our time.
Baldridge received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking in 1999 from Rhode Island School of Design. In addition to having his own fulltime studio practice, the artist has frequently collaborated with other creatives and printmakers. The communal aspect of printmaking has led him to serve as a consultant, founder, and printer of hundreds of limited-edition prints and projects alongside artists, galleries, and publishers. His work is included in the prominent permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY Public Library, RISD Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, and Library of Congress.
Past Exhibitions
July 11, 2025 - October 26, 2025
Sara G Lee, PORTALS
Each painting a PORTAL inviting you in to explore, sharing her experience of a certain place or time.
Artist Sarah G Lee, owner of Sprucetreestudio.net lives with her husband in Tenants Harbor Maine, near to her children and grandchildren from Lincolnville and Camden.
Sarah’s love for Maine began in her early childhood where she spent summers on Deer Isle. From the age of 6 she considered Deer Isle her home, her haven, where she foraged for berries and chanterelles, painted, dug for beach clay (and clams) and explored the rugged coastline.
Many summer days were spent padding barefoot down the coves edge to the road and up a path to Haystack Mountain School for the Arts where she spent hours watching artists craft and create.
In her early 20’s Sarah made her home in Brooklin Maine and then East Blue Hill where she raised her two daughters Molly and Julie.
Sarah attended College as a visual arts major but is primarily self taught. Painting, making and craft have always played a strong role in Sarah’s life and in raising her children.
Starting 2012, living in Scarborough Maine, Sarah’s paintings started gaining some attention after she donated some of her work to various auctions for local charities. Then more attention was gained as she introduced her paintings to her design clients, resulting in sales. In 2018 Sarah and her husband Jim moved to Tenants Harbor. They embraced their new community like a hand to glove and Sarah embarked on being a full time artistApril 5th, 2025 - July 2025
April 4, 2025 - July 11, 2025
James Rocco Hodgdon, WOOD AND INK
This collection of art captures the simplicity of the medium on the rawness of wood, drawing a parallel to the permanence of tattoos. Each piece is bold and intended to evoke a sense of nostalgia, with a vintage aesthetic.
James Rocco Hodgdon is a tattooer and owner of Death or Glory Tattoos for the past 20 years.
January 10, 2025 - April 4, 2025
Samara Kupferberg, LUMINOUS DISTRACTION
Distraction is seldom granted the highest consideration. Stay focused! Think of what you’re doing! Be sensible! Get it done!
But what about the worlds we leave behind—unexplored and neglected? Distraction allows us to set sight into them. In those fleeting moments, we embark on exploratory journeys through time, space, and life—journeys that would otherwise remain impossible..
Samara Kupferberg’s meticulous drawings are treasures brought back from the realm of distraction. Unearthed from this cosmic abstraction, her works evoke undetermined living forms, luminous gems, and ethereal landscapes. These creations, propelled from her memory onto paper, serve as miniature accounts of what seems to exist beyond our busy, focused world.
Her process is one of mindful and patient discovery, where the act of drawing itself reveals hidden wonders. Kupferberg’s art reminds us of the inherent politics of disengaging, dropping out from duty, breaking free from fear.
Samara Kupferberg was born in Toronto, Canada in 1974 and grew up in NYC. She holds a BFA in Fiber from Maryland Institute, College of Art, 1996. Currently living and working in Portland, Maine.
October 11, 2024 - January 9, 2025
Dominique Ostuni, NOT CERAMICS BUT SOMETHING ELSE
Dominique Ostuni’s work explores the multi-faceted and intimate connections of everyday life. A trained ceramicist, this is a rare insight into the artists sketchbooks. Imbued with personal narrative significance and introspective depth, each piece reflects her engagement with the nuances of interaction, pleasure, and the passage of time.
Dominique Ostuni received her B.F.A in ceramics from Maine College of Art and Design. She has been a resident artist at CRETA in Rome, Italy. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and shows across the United States and abroad and is in many collections worldwide. She lives in the woods of Bowdoinham, Maine, where she works out of her studio alongside the Cathance River.
July 5, 2024 - September 30, 2024
Jenny Ibsen, HARE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW
Hare today, gone tomorrow debuts terracotta vessels made by Jenny Ibsen. These recurring bunnies float through her mind (and even the clouds), run through gardens for a lettuce snack, jump in the ocean for a swim, and consider themselves royalty. Oh! If only we could live with such ease as these bunnies. Imagine we bask in their ephemeral bliss forever.
Jenny Ibsen (b. 1996) is a printmaker, ceramicist, and restaurant worker born in China and based in Portland, Maine.
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.
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.