Eliot artist Gordon Carlisle unveils ‘Panorama’ at York Public Library

YORK, Maine — York Public Library is hosting the exhibit "Panorama," featuring the work of Eliot artist Gordon Carlisle.

"With this showing at the York Public Library, I'm attempting to convey the 40-plus year 'panorama' of my visual art output since first arriving here," Carlisle said. "It will include examples of my public art, theatrical design, paintings, collages and illustrations."

Gordon Carlisle has been actively involved as a visual artist in the greater Portsmouth area since 1982. A 1973 graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute (BFA, printmaking), he was a member of Portsmouth's Mural Works for ten years before starting his own business in 1994.

To date, Carlisle has completed over 40 public art commissions across New England. Sixteen have been Percent for Art grants in Maine and New Hampshire, and two were New Hampshire Community Arts Residencies. Included among these have been commissions for hospitals, health clinics, veterans and nursing homes, colleges and schools, state agencies, discovery centers, restaurants, courthouses, a youth development center, a planetarium, a dance hall, a bank, a seafood export company and the cities of Skowhegan, Maine, and Manchester and Somersworth, New Hampshire.

Additionally, he has participated in ten major church, courthouse, and library redecorations and restorations around New England. In 1999, Carlisle was awarded a New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship for his accomplishments as a muralist.

With eleven solo and over 55 group exhibitions under his belt, this award-winning artist continues producing his own, non-commissioned art from his studio in Eliot. These include paintings in oils and acrylics on a variety of surfaces, watercolors, drawings on paper, repurposed paint-by-number paintings, collages, and assemblage. Carlisle is currently featured in ten collections, and his work has been exhibited across the United States.

"I am a pluralist," said Carlisle. "Or so I was once dubbed by a reviewer. At the time, I think she intended it as a slight, but I've come to embrace my pluralism. I enjoy making a lot of different things. Now into my 70s, so much of life continues to fascinate me and inspire my creations."