SEE-October 2009

Artists have been visiting Monhegan for a century and a half; their images have become part of its landscape. Robert Pollien lives on Mount Desert Island and studied under Neil Welliver.

Robert Pollien, Cathedral Woods, Monhegan 2009, oil on board, 16” × 16”

Dowling Walsh Gallery | 357 Main Street | Rockland | dowlingwalsh.com and at pollien.com

When Pollien goes to Monhegan, he paints with wise awareness of who has preceded him. He understands George Bellows’ muscular brushwork, Edward Hopper’s desolate shores, Rockwell Kent’s expansive skies. Like many Maine painters, Pollien is more interested in contrast than in color. This work has taken him somewhere new. In Cathedral Woods, he has entered a place where topography has abstracted into emotion.