Local Color Gallery welcomes Sean Hasey, guest artist, and David Estey, new gallery member. Both artists’ works may be seen beginning Tuesday, May 20, and both will give short artists’ talks at 5:30 p.m., at the Belfast Art Walk (4 to 7 p.m.) on Friday, May 23.

Biddeford artist Sean Hasey displays a series of paintings exploring human interaction with space and time, using architecture as a launching point. They speak to the transformation of land from ‘natural habitat’ into ‘natural human habitat.’ Clouds, trees, water and sky pass through structures that float in space, as if as if to say, ‘all castles are sand.’

"The crowded compositions evoke the rapid and claustrophobic pace of the encroaching built environment, especially near water, but also the increasingly crowded urban environments and development of rural land," said Local Color, in a news release.

Hasey comments, “I have witnessed and been party to the gentrification and real-estate development of three disparate places: Williamsburg, Brooklyn; Portland, Maine; and now Biddeford, Maine. As a molecule is altered through simple observation, I have taken part in transformation just by moving to, living in, and observing these communities. As a Maine-born resident, I’m acutely aware of these changes in my home state.”

Local Color welcomes Belfast artist David Estey as its newest gallery member. Estey is an improvisational painter and past President of the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA). He taught himself to draw and paint while growing up in Fort Fairfield and attending Crosby High School in Belfast. Estey earned a BFA degree in painting from Rhode Island School of Design, studied a year in Rome, and spent four years as an Army illustrator. He earned an MSA degree in public administration and had a federal career in public affairs, continuing to produce, exhibit, and teach art throughout his career and studying extensively at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Estey has had 26 solo shows (including one at Local Color) and well over 100 group and juried exhibits in Maine, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. His work is in private and organizational collections in 20 states and seven countries. He has produced over 11,000 pieces of art.

Estey says, “I hope my Maine roots and decades of study, experience and exploration are evident in a hard-won gravitas reflected in my work. My improvisations can be purely abstract but are often oddly narrative, sometimes inexplicable. I love that, because I want to be as surprised and intrigued as anyone else by what I make.”

Local Color Gallery is located at 135 High Street. For more information see localcolorgallerymaine.org or call 207-218-1249.