Don Voisine
Aboveboard (2018)
Don Voisine, born 1952 in Fort Kent, ME, attended the Portland School of Art, and Concept School for Visual Studies in Maine. He received an honorary BFA from the Maine College of Art in 2000 and an honorary PhD from the University of Maine at Fort Kent in 2023.
In 2016 Voisine’s work was the subject of a 15 year survey at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (Rockland, ME) and recently had a solo exhibition with McKenzie Fine Art, NYC. In the past 2 years his work has been featured in group exhibitions in Berlin, Brooklyn, Cologne, Denver, Hudson, Lyon, Monaco, and Washington, DC. His work has been reviewed in Art in America, Art News, The New York Times, Portland Press Herald, Hyperallergic, and The Brooklyn Rail.
Fellowships and residencies include NYFA Painting Grant; Edward Albee Foundation, Montauk; The BAU Institute, Italy; Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle; Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, Brooklyn; and Surf Point Foundation, York, ME.
Since 1997 Voisine has been a member of American Abstract Artists, an artist-run organization founded in 1936, and served as its President from 2004 to 2012. In 2010 he was elected to the National Academy of Design where he served on the membership committee for 9 years
Collections include: Portland Museum of Art, ME; Colby Museum, Waterville, ME; Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, CA; San Jose Museum of Art, CA; Special Collection of the Library, MOMA, NY; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Print Department, NY; Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; National Academy Museum, NY. .
Concerns, themes, etc.:
Architecture – a language of space – delineates boundaries, exposes points of access, exit or entry, and enables the user to interact with the structure of a defined space. This simple vernacular of architecture informs my paintings. Working with symmetry and a standardized format to reduce variables, I establish borders on all planes. Color activates an apparent void; a reflective surface opens a window into the painting, both mirroring and obscuring the view. Such devices restrict and ultimately reveal the interior spaces, establishing a fluid subjectivity between the viewer and the work.
My earlier paintings were about limits, restrictions, and controlled access. With the introduction of more complex angles, the space becomes charged, resonating with implied speed, curve and thrust. These interactions seem to extend beyond the edges of the picture plane, shifting perceptions of scale and perspective.
I try to counter my own expectations, juxtaposing unlike elements to create an active visual field. Compositional elements: space, light, color, and form, combine with the perception of the viewer to create an individual and particular experience.
Evolution of the work:
Years ago I began working with imagery derived from floor plans of places I lived in or worked in. Over time the paintings became more and more geometrically structured and less about a specific place. My work evolved slowly through repeated explorations of variations and form. I don’t work in series per se but continually on a number of paintings at once with ideas feeding individual paintings back and forth. Certain features may begin to appear sporadically but a year later those features may have become the prominent areas that the work is exploring. It’s a long slow back and forth, a give-and-take that isn’t always linear.
In 2006, in addition to working on wood panels, I began painting on small chunks of Styrofoam boards. Although I use the same type of imagery on both substrates, wood or foam, the Styrofoam paintings maintain a funkier edge, with perhaps less gravitas, and convey a quality of humor not associated with rigorous geometric forms. Each material, foam or wood, generates ideas for the other.
