The Women of the Gulf of Maine, a seaweed-based sculpture show opens tomorrow Friday, April 21st at Moss Galleries, 100 Fore Street on Munjoy HIll.  The exhibit runs from 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm and the exhibit runs through Saturday, May 27, 2023.

Sculpture Celeste Roberge developed a fascination with seaweed back in 2014 when she was on a research trip to the Downeast Institute in Beals. That visit was when she learned of the reproductive cycle that Fucus vesiculosus participate in. That species reproduces from separate male and female organisms that simultaneously release sperm and eggs into the ocean according to material provided by Roberge to Moss Galleries.  Hence, the name of the exhibit Women of the Gulf of Maine.

Roberge’s Women are not about “seduction.”  They are about “Women standing.  Women walking..  Women waiting.”  These sculptures are about her “desire to create new beings,” she says.  “They simply exist with all their differences.”

Incidentalaly, the opening of this show coincides with Seaweed Week which starts on Friday, April 21st and runs through April 30.  Roberge is a member of the Maine Seaweed Council  Please visit seaweedcouncil.org for more information on the subject.  Please also visit post herein dated April 17, 2023 for more information on Seaweed Week in Portland.

Roberge, who was born in Biddeford, maintains a studio in South Portland. For twenty-two years she taught at the Univiersity of Florida where she was Head of the Sculpture Area.  She earned her MFA from the  Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, BFA from Maine College of Art & Design and BA in sociology from the University of Maine.  She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1979.  In 2008, Roberge was awarded an  Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Maine.  Her list of awards, research grants and other distinctions is far too extensive to replicate here.  Suffice it to say that she enjoys an international reputation that extends to her outdoor sculpture installation at Expo 2000 in Germany.

Her exhibit, “The Culture of Seaweed” will be at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, June 15 to December 3, 2023.

Moss Galleries was establaished in 2004 with a focus on Maine artists and was named one of the top 500 Galleries in North America by Artinfo. For more information, please call 207 – 781-2620.