ROCKLAND, ME.- The CMCA is presenting Paint the Air, a solo exhibition of new works by Lauren Luloff in CMCA’s Guy D. Hughes Gallery.

Luloff’s expansive paintings reflect her continued fascination with textiles, pattern, repetition, form, and color as means of expression. Her new works are deeply personal and cross multiple disciplines. She uses colored dye, textile design, collage, and the mechanics of quilting, all mediums and modalities within the artist’s practice and visual vocabulary.

Luloff is known for her innovative approach to painting, employing richly colored dyes on silk. At various stages of her process she cuts and sews together pieces of silk, either blank or previously painted, to create her larger works. The silk is steamed to allow the dye to set permanently and then stretched onto a frame. The stretching of the loose fabric is the final act of completion, giving the painting its assigned form. There is a back-and-forth between cutting, sewing, and painting which answers the question of time and sequencing.

Luloff’s interior and exterior life in Lubec are on display in these works. Impressionistic scenes from the Maine coast are interwoven with native flora and fauna while repetitious grids and stripes punctuate the body of the works. The effect is mesmerizing. One can see the silhouette of a child repeated throughout Luloff’s sewn together scenes. This is the artist's son, his gestures and movement incorporated into space through the use of a resist line. The resist is Luloff’s way of drawing and her means to tame the materials that at times can be unpredictable. The silhouettes are evident yet they bleed into the scenes; a symbolic gesture bearing witness to her son’s childhood and his own expressivity.

One can not help but feel the ebullience of the artist. A playfulness is transmuted onto Luloff’s surfaces. Her large scale works will be free-standing in this exhibition, confounding the expectations of traditionally hung paintings. This separation from the wall allows light to penetrate from both the front and back, highlighting the different textures and transparencies of the silks. The paintings in Paint the Air are like expressionistic tapestries telling stories of time and place with enough ambiguity to allow the viewer to weave in their own imaginings.

Lauren Luloff, born in Dover, New Hampshire, has presented solo exhibitions in the US and abroad, at Dunes, Portland, ME; SOCO Gallery, Charlotte, NC; Fridman Gallery, New York; Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY; Ceysson and Bénétière, Saint Etienne, France; and Annarumma Gallery, Naples, Italy among others. Luloff’s work has been presented in notable group exhibitions at The Queens Museum, Queens, NY; Galerie Lelong, New York; CANADA Gallery, New York; Marlborough Gallery, Madrid, Spain; and Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy among others. The artist has been awarded residencies by Interlude Artist Residency in Hudson, NY; The Bau Institute in Cassis, France; The Macedonia Institute in Chatham, NY; and DNA Residency in Provincetown, MA. Luloff received her MFA from The Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, and her BFA from Pennsylvania State University. The artist lives and works in Maine.

Hilary Schaffner is an independent curator whose career in the arts spans over 20 years. In 2011 she co-founded Halsey McKay Gallery in Long Island, New York, with the goal of bringing mid-career and emerging artists to the area. She was responsible for the direction and curation of numerous exhibitions at Halsey McKay between 2011-2017. Prior to founding the gallery, she received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City while working as Director of the Wild Project Gallery on the Lower East Side. Hilary has worked in public relations for arts institutions including the Dia Art Foundation, Isamu Noguchi Foundation and the Cisneros Foundation. She has been a guest critic at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, New York; School of Visual Arts, New York; Parsons School of Design, New York, and Maine College of Art & Design. Since moving to Maine in 2018 Schaffner has curated several exhibitions including Broken Open at Museum of New Art, Portsmouth, NH, You Look Like a World at Able Baker Gallery, Portland, ME, and Asters & Goldenrod at Alice Gavin Gallery, Portland, ME. Her curatorial work has been featured in Artforum, ArtNews, Interview, The East Hampton Star, Modern Painters, Vogue, Portland Press Herald, and Boston Art Review. Hilary lives in Portland, ME.