Bo Bartlett, Blue Sky, September 11, 2012, Wheaton Island, Maine, 2012, Oil on panel, framed, 18 x 18 inches, (unframed); 25 x 25 inches (framed), Courtesy of the artist and the Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus, Georgia.
ROCKLAND, ME.- CMCA announced Because the Sky is Blue, a rich examination of critical histories of painting and the status of painting as a critical practice in our present moment. Setting works by well-known artists strongly associated with Maine alongside a mix of fresh voices from outside the region, it reflects CMCA’s renewed commitment to advancing and enriching artistic discourse through ambitious thematic exhibitions. Organized by CMCA Curator Grant Wahlquist and accompanied by an illustrated publication with a contribution by Patricia Hickson, the exhibition runs from October 2, 2026 – January 17, 2027.
“This is an exhibition of paintings that do many things at once,” explains the exhibition’s curator, Grant Wahlquist. “Many of them are monochromes, or at least they seem to be at first. Look closer, and these paintings may tell you they are also many other things: skyscapes, windows, screens. Other paintings resemble trompe l’œil, but nonetheless have much to say about abstraction, framing, and other modernist concerns. This is also an exhibition of sculptures, prints, collages, and a film that nonetheless trespass on painting, and may in fact be paintings when viewed from the right perspective. The formal complexity of these artworks—the way in which they inhabit multiple histories of painting, multiple media, multiple genres—mirrors their roots in psychological and political difficulty. These artworks hold diverse, sometimes conflicting emotions, and ask us to look closely and long enough to bear witness to their affective intricacy.”…