Abby Shahn has been living and working in Maine since 1969; she is one of the state’s most important and celebrated artists. Her work hovers between the figurative and the non-objective, showing that no boundaries are needed. She explains, “I believe that all painting is abstract. However, even in the most non-objective paintings, I always find there is an illusion of space that is a kind of realism.” Critic Ken Greenleaf describes Shahn’s ability to paint, as being like a highly-skilled jazz performer, she just picks up the horn and blows it, and what comes out has coherence, order, and emotional resonance. She sees, rhythm as the basis of all art. Her long list of solo shows includes Hinkley and Broehel Gallery, Midtown Galleries, Shepherd Gallery, and The Drawing Shop, all of New York, and Alice Bingham Gallery, Memphis, TN, The University of Maine at Farmington, and the Hobe Sound Galleries North, in Portland, Maine, among many others. She has been part of numerous juried and group shows in Pennsylvania, New York, Missouri, Minnesota, and throughout the Northeast.
Abby’s work is collected and held in both public and private collections across the U.S. including The Colby College Museum of Art, the Walker Art Museum at Bowdoin College, The Farnsworth Art Museum, Union Carbide and Southland Corporations, the New Jersey State Museum, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, in Washington, DC. She was commissioned in 2004 for a fresco panel installation at the Bingham Health Center in Bingham, Maine, as well as an installation titled “The Damnation of the Bureaucrats,” for the University of Southern Maine and produced a silk screen poster for the 2nd Maine Biennial.
Website
http://www.abbyshahn.com