Two Paintings by Anne Ireland in the Current Exhibit at Moss Galleries, 100 Fore Street Are: “After the Storm” and Tanglewood. Cost is $4,500. Each. (Photo by Adam Powers, Professional (Digital) Phodtographer and Employee of Moss Galleries).
OIl Paintings by Anne Ireland at Moss Galleries, Munjoy HIll are: Blue Fir, Beyond the Pale and Cascade. (Photo by Adan Powers).
To the delight of her many admirers, painter Anne Ireland, opened an exhibit at the new Moss Galleries on Munjoy Hill last week. Before the end of the well-attended grand opening, Moss Galleries sold six of Ireland’s ‘woodland’ paintings – a testament to her popularity in southern Maine.
Ireland earned a BA from Bowdoin College and a MFA from Maine College of Art, (MECA), Portland. She has exhibited widely in Maine – from Somes Sound to Moss Galleries, Falmouth – and now for the first time on the east end of Portland.
Maine’s vast woodlands are the subject of many of her oil paintings – many of them on linen according to Adam Powers, an employee of Moss Galleries, 100 Fore Street, on the Hill late last week. Ireland paints traditional Maine landscapes with an emphasis on color. The appeal of color dates back to her early childhood and is an important part of her paintings. “For me, the push and pull of the color relationships, warm and cool, dark and light, saturated or low key, is what creates the emotional response I work towards,” Ireland wrote in her mission statement…..Using color that is unexpected creates an energy or friction that only adds to the painting’s interest.”
She continues that she’s been told that people would like to be “inside” her paintings, to “go there.” Her landscapes are not “realism,” but they become real as they are experienced by the viewer. “We are all connected on this beautiful and struggling planet. My personal landscape is in each piece and I know I’m not alone.”
Ireland has painted three L. L. Bean catalog covers and her paintings are in the collections of the Mayo Clinic, Verrill & Dana, WEX. and Jensen Baird Garnder & Henry.
This show at the Moss Galleries, 100 Fore Street, runs through September 17, 2022.