One of the pleasures of summer is the opportunity for frequent daytrips and weekend getaways — and for art lovers that often means exploring galleries, museums and shows that are off our beaten paths. It was in that context that I discovered the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA).
The building alone was worth the trip. The structure is fresh and modern while also fitting well within the vernacular of the adjacent working waterfront. Internationally known architect Toshiko Mori designed the steel structure with corrugated metal and glass — lots of glass! The light pours into the museum from the floor to ceiling windows that surround a welcoming U-shaped courtyard.
This summer, the museum is presenting four thoughtful and engaging contemporary exhibitions organized by CMCA’s relatively new curator Grant Wahlquist. The four solo shows balance each other well: geometric meditations in wood; abstract paintings and giant papier-mâché sculptures in sizzling colors; assemblages in natural and manmade materials; and a video installation moving across five screens.
The first is “Will Sears | The Third Field,” an exhibition of eight flat assemblages and a site-specific mural on view through September 6. All the works are grid-based abstractions composed of neatly arranged stripes and rectangles. The painted mural, “Daisy-Chain,” spans a full 352 inches across the museum’s main entryway, pulsing with life as some colors pop and others recede. Framed and mounted on the walls, Sears’ assemblages read as paintings, although in reality, each band of color is a narrow block of painted wood that Sears has cut to size with mathematical precision and inserted like a mosaic tile. The optical magic of these works derives from Sears’ brilliant selection of adjacent colors. A thrumming vibration occurs between some colors. Other colors change, chameleon-like, depending on their placement. He acknowledges the color theories of Josef Albers as one of his many influences.