The Maine Coast! Just saying it out loud to yourself calls to mind a time you might have stood here, in this very spot, or a similar location, and with a deep breath captured in memory the ‘essence’ of Maine. For it’s the rocky coast of Maine and the waters of the Gulf of Maine that most often engages the visitor ‘s imagination: knowing that out there, beyond the horizon was Portugal, Spain, and the coast of France and England.
Painting coastal Maine from memory is what I’m doing. The images showing here and on my Website “Maine Landscapes and Seascapes Series” is a sample of my Maine memory painting efforts. I have determined that painting from memory is a method that I believe allows me to declare my art as a distinctive Maine painting series.
While relying on memory is an artistic challenge itself, there is the other danger of painting in repetition in doing of the art. It does require a determination to be creative at all costs. My reason (although I don’t think I’m required to give a reason) to use ‘memory’ as my Maine landscape and seascape painting method, is simply stated, it’s my ‘reality’. I understand the response: Well, ‘real’: what does that come to mean? Who can say what is ‘real’? However, I believe that memory painting helps controls this issue. It’s often accomplished rapidly, it displays little detail, it’s subtle in what it says. At its core it demands that the person who views the art view it with an understanding and appreciation that’s derived from prior experience of the ‘essence’ of Maine. Yes, difficult to achieve, and to require from a viewer!
Since I returned to Maine from an extended artistic residency in Mexico, and all my landscapes and seascapes have been created from ‘memory,’ I’m sharing this body of work as Salazar’s Maine Memory Paintings, and seeking viewers who also have a ‘memory’ of Maine that may bring them to purchase and enjoy or collect as a ‘memory’ of Maine.
I have an established goal for my work to express Maine’s true essence. I paint ‘Maine’ as unforgiving, the land, sea and sky as uncompromising, demanding one’s daily awareness, and testing one’s ability to live with nature as a constant in your life.
To see more of my paintings: https://www.salazargallery.com/landscapes-seascapes/