Two quiet and relatively new presences on Maine’s gallery scene are Interloc in Thomaston and Triangle Gallery in Rockland. Interloc was actually founded in 2017 by Alexis Iammarino and Maeve O’Regan as a multidisciplinary project space and a collaborator on artist publications. But Interloc only took occupancy of this Main Street outpost a year and a half ago. Since both co-directors have full work lives, it has been primarily by appointment until now and, so, flown virtually under the radar.

Susan Akers opened Triangle in May, across a convivial courtyard from the over 40-year-old Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland. (Blue Raven Gallery, also in Rockland, recently took over the former Harbor Square Gallery, but its next big show opening isn’t until March, so I will wait until then to cover it in more detail.) All these venues are exhibiting many artists we don’t usually encounter on the state’s exhibition circuit, so are worth a visit.

“Traces / Works & Process,” Elaine K. Ng’s beautifully subtle show at Interloc (through Jan. 20) is all about place and process. Yet you won’t fully understand this immediately after crossing the threshold. Instead, the works are such silent manifestations in the clean white space that you might not register them as more than squares and rectangles of fabric tacked to the walls and a scattering of wood boxes at the rear of the gallery. You certainly would have no idea that they are culminations of processes that transpired over many years.

The process-oriented nature of Ng’s art begins to dawn as you see that the fabrics are what I’d call “minimalist” embroideries. At first, the relation between the titles and the designs are enigmatic. After a bit, though, you intuit that the works have something to do with aerial views and that they reference man-made landmarks and animal tracks. Two “Cat” works, for instance, are easily grasped as paths marked by paw prints in the snow.

The embroideries have a gentle delicacy to them (something emphasized by the ones that softly flutter in the air currents left in your wake as you walk past them). Yet they also have a substantial sense of materiality, particularly those that are double layers of cotton fabrics or, like “Flash Freeze,” layers of appliqué.

Next, we encounter three videos, all of insects going about their daily rounds – various caterpillars crossing asphalt or leafy ground, ants transporting a desiccated lizard (presumably to be feasted upon in their nest), beetles walking across what looks like the top of a fence. They are endlessly fascinating in the way of many nature videos that zoom in on routine comings and goings of creatures we rarely notice.

But these videos are also embedded in gorgeously crafted shadow boxes, mostly of poplar, made by Ng’s husband, Mark Juliana, facilities director and program manager at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship just down the road in Rockport. The enclosures rivet our attention on the bugs by focusing our view inside the boxes, their smoothly planed and sanded sides almost blocking out peripheral vision so we can truly look – and behold – the minute miracles of nature.

It isn’t until reaching a “process room,” created by Ng at the suggestion of Iammarino and O’Regan, that we fully comprehend the expansive breadth of Ng’s project. Taped to the wall are drawings of the embroideries at different scales. These were literally traced over photographs that were taken by a drone Ng sent up over the property she shares with Juliana in nearby Hope.

A case in the middle of the room – which is separated from the rest of the gallery and functions as a kind of “big reveal” or “aha!” moment – displays the actual drone photos. They offer instant legibility for the embroideries, as we can now see the fence surrounding the property (depicted in two “Garden Fence” works), the woodpile (seen in “Silky Rocks and Lumber Pile”), the icy puddle in the leaves of “Flash Freeze” and the deer tracks in the snow leading to and from one of the animals’ favorite meals (recorded in “Deer Eating Rhododendron”).

We also find a little bowl of chokecherry pits, some of which Ng quilted into “Untitled,” as well as dried plants from her garden that she used to conjure the natural dyes that color her cotton squares and rectangles as well as the threads comprising the embroideries. Though the creatures in the videos were not necessarily from this particular land, we can still understand them as inextricable components of Ng’s psychological habitat.

The embroideries are only the result of five years of experimentation and investigation into the physical and psychological attributes of the place she lives and the materials with which she works. This involved, among other things: refining her gardening skills, patiently planting and harvesting species such as sumac, marigold, rudbeckia, indigo and madder; studying and reproducing sometimes ancient dye formulas made with these plants; learning specific stitches she employs in the embroideries; combing the instruction manuals of her drone; and on and on. This is not to mention writing three separate grants to help fund various aspects of the project.

By documenting various elements of the property and engaging so fully with the land and its structures, she is also recording the various meanings it holds for her and Juliana. Suddenly the simple embroideries don’t seem so simple. Instead, the history of their creation imbues the embroideries with a poetic monumentality, a thoroughly grounded and organic elegance and a profound spiritual depth. They might even take your breath away.

LAND AS PHYSICALITY

Nature is also at the heart of “Conrad Guertin” (through Jan. 31) at Triangle in Rockland. The self-taught Guertin, who lives in Bristol with his wife, describes his work as “a conversation with the earth.” The land’s palette – black, browns, tans, grays, clay-like reds – is clearly a recognizable touchstone. They emanate the sense of mud and earth and rock, but through an abstract lens; at least when Guertin trusts his viewers to discern with all our senses rather than just intellectualizing what we are seeing.

Guertin paints with oils on Yupo, a recyclable waterproof paper made from extruded polypropylene pellets. Its properties of absorption are completely different from most papers – namely, paints don’t immediately soak into it but sit on the surface before drying. So, they can be brushed, scraped, wiped and otherwise manipulated while still wet. This gives Guertin’s paintings a sense of fluidity and movement, and it also allows him to blend different layers together so we cannot always precisely distinguish one from the other.

To create these layers, Guertin employs a variety of tools, not just traditional brushes and palette knives. These might include corrugated cardboard he paints and presses onto the Yupo, metal screens placed on the surface and painted over to create grid patterns, cloth that he wipes across the picture plane to blur and partially obscure or reveal layers beneath other layers, sharp tools with which he gouges and scratches lines into the paint.

This variety of paint applications results in works that are palpably textural, like the rugged coast that he lives near and the mudflats left as tides recede. This latter inspiration also informs the work of the Maine-based British artist John Walker, and the affinity between these men’s works is apparent.

Others, such as “Derelict,” have a gestural feel to them akin to Franz Kline, who, Guertin says, inspired him to become a painter after seeing the great abstract expressionist and action painter’s work as a teen. The price sheet offers a helpful but unnecessary description of this work: “Inspired by the decay of old lobster wharfs, shacks which dot the coast of Maine.” I say “helpful” because it explains something that many viewers, especially those confounded by abstraction, might appreciate. But it really is unnecessary and, I think, can too neatly limit broader interpretations that resonate beyond a purely pictorial, representational level, penetrating, as they might, all of our senses.

In fact, many titles already reveal the specific subject matter Guertin is referencing, such as “Cocoon,” “Morph” (also cocoon shapes), “Forest” and “Reflections: Moon Over Aqueduct.” But I would argue that specific themes are not actually where the strength of the work resides. Rather, Guertin effectively and viscerally translates the sensual feelings of the earth and land around him: the watery quality of his coastal surroundings (greatly enhanced by the reactions of oil on Yupo), the smell of the mudflats, the cragginess of rocks.

This is more than enough to elicit our response, which by its very abstract nature – to my mind at least – is more emotionally impactful than didactic.

Jorge S. Arango has written about art, design and architecture for over 35 years. He lives in Portland. He can be reached at: jorge@jsarango.com 

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