SUMMER EXHIBITIONS OPEN AT THE ZILLMAN ART MUSEUM – UNIVERSITY OF MAINE
ZAM is open Tuesday-Saturday from 10 am – 5 pm and brings modern and contemporary art to the region, presenting approximately 21 original exhibitions each year. Admission to the Zillman Art Museum is free in 2025 thanks to the generosity of BIRCHBROOK.
JOHN MARIN: VISIONARY MOMENTS
MAY 16 – SEPTEMBER 6, 2025
Visionary Moments features over 30 works by modern art master John Marin (1870-1953). Marin is revered internationally, but also has inextricable ties to Maine’s rich artistic history. Beginning with his first visit in 1914, and continuing until his death in 1953, the artist spent significant time in Maine. His longest residency was at his home and studio in Cape Split on the rugged Downeast Maine coast. In this exhibition we see the evolution of Marin’s creative process and approach to art-making.
Beginning with detailed depictions of dramatic European architecture in etchings from 1906 through 1909, and extending to spirited landscapes that border on abstraction, the artist’s transformation is evident. Brimming with expressive brushstrokes, the show features paintings in which he captured locations in Maine, New Jersey, and Tyrol, Austria, in both oil and watercolor.
The Marin family has been dedicated and longstanding supporters of the visual arts in Maine for decades. This exhibition specifically celebrates the Marin family’s relationship with the Zillman Art Museum (ZAM) and the University of Maine Machias. The Marin’s generous gift to ZAM numbers over 20 works of art and includes drawings, etchings, and watercolors. Visionary Moments showcases an enticing assortment of works that offers a window into the soul of this American modernist luminary.
O’NEIL SCOTT: A JOURNEY TO DISTANT MEMORIES
MAY 16 – SEPTEMBER 6, 2025
The Zillman Art Museum is pleased to present A Journey to Distant Memories, a solo-exhibition of works by Pennsylvania-based painter O’Neil Scott. The exhibition features numerous never-before-seen paintings and several of the artist’s largest compositions created to date. Scott was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica and the majority of these works are inspired by memories of locations and events experienced during his youth. They are a way for the artist to capture fleeting moments from childhood that seem “hazy, foggy and hard to distinguish” with each passing year. The paintings are contemplations of people, some familiar and others distant, and environments filtered through the disjointed lens of time and memory.
In Scott’s first major museum exhibition, he debuts the large-scale painting In Case of Emergency, in which he recalls feelings of support and community found within the walls of the black church. These memories are like a warm embrace, which radiate from the vibrant congregants who occupy the wooden pews. Incorporated within the work is an image of a blue heron emerging as a symbol of ascendance, a beacon of beauty and hope.
In Fading Promises, a new painting from 2025, the artist addresses the complexities surrounding migration and relocation while in search of opportunities and a better life. The painting is a tribute to Scott’s mother who journeyed to America to build a future for her family. The artist states that Fading Promises “captures the tension between the bright lights of ambition and the shadows of sacrifice that are often hidden within the pursuit of a dream.” Strong highlights define the gentle face of the young woman, as her fractured form seems to meld into a background of glimmering cruise ship lights and buildings that emerge from the darkened night sky.
PETER WALLS: MEMORY PALACE
MAY 16 – AUGUST 16, 2025
Maine-based artist Peter Walls has created a stunning assortment of never-before exhibited shaped paintings for his solo-exhibition Memory Palace. While the artist has traversed woodlands around New York’s Lake Ontario, Louisiana, New Hampshire and Vermont, the Maine environment inspires this new body of work. Memories of the artist’s experiences exploring varied landscapes infuse these works-—the wonderment of the terrain and its flora, along with emotions stirred by each of the various locations. Walls states, “My relationship with the Maine landscape through these 20 paintings is meant to slowly invite you into my world. We live a meandering existence, never a straight line, and I want to evoke both the winding paths we take through the forest and life itself.”
These paintings are not traditional depictions of specific Maine locations, but rather composite creations informed by the visual memories of information encountered in places that, as the artist suggests, are “personal memory palaces”. The focal point of the show is a large-scale, multi-paneled composition titled Bulwark (Schoodic Peninsula) which spans 17 feet and was created in response to ZAM’s gallery. The viewer is immersed in a vibrant landscape brimming with moss, lichen covered rocks and strategically placed fallen trees that seem to lure one into the scene.
The artist’s skill as a painter and muralist is clearly evident in the exhibition, by the scale in which he works and the utility of creating multiple panels that join in a seamless composition. Walls accentuates the spirit of these imagined locations through the heightened color used to depict the natural details and the silhouettes created by the shaped supports. “My use of color is intuitive, yet grounded in my journeys in the woods and waters of Maine. I am not in any way photo-realistically rendering what I experience but letting my emotion of place and the magic it reveals come forward; I want you to feel my landscapes through my high-spirited palette, like a memory of a journey one has once made themselves.” says Walls.
The exhibition offers two viewing experiences. In one gallery the large compositions predominate our vision, while in another 16 small-sized compositions—some of which are 12” tall—enliven the gallery with singular moments of contemplation.
Other exhibitions on display this summer:
WHAT DO YOU DO? OCCUPATION & IDENTITY
Selections from the Collection
May 16 – September 6, 2025
Curated by Julianna Day, 2024-25 Curatorial Intern
CREATURES & DEITIES
Works from the Collection
May 16 – August 23, 2025
NO BODY
Clothing Inspired Works from the Collection
May 16 – September 6, 2025