In “Maine: Work & Play” Jessica Ives (nee Stammen) explores the interior and exterior landscapes where she lives, works and plays. More than 30 works comprise the exhibit. The artist will be present to speak about her work at an opening reception on Tuesday, March 4 from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Blue Gallery at David Saul Smith Union, located on the Bowdoin College campus at 3725 College Station. “Maine: Work & Play” will run through Saturday, March 29.

Ives received her bachelor’s degree in fine arts from The Cooper Union School of Art and her master’s from New York University. She was a New York One Hometown Hero, among Eileen Fisher’s “Women Who Change the World Every Day,” named one of Glamour Magazine’s Top 10 College Women of 2003, and received multiple awards, grants and public speaking opportunities because of her work as an artist in residence at ground zero after 9/11.

In 2008 she returned to Midcoast Maine and collaborated on the startup of Jo Ellen Designs in Camden while establishing her studio practice. Her work is represented by Gleason Fine Art in Boothbay Harbor and Courthouse Gallery Fine Art in Ellsworth.

In this exhibit her paintings of play portray outsiders: her dad and brothers fly fishing on the Rapid River and Grand Lake Stream; and her friends who swim, canoe and kayak alongside her during summertime adventures. Also included are paintings of surfer friends who escape with her to Costa Rica for a spring break experience as integral to her winter life in Maine as the pond hockey she plays. Ives’ paintings of work depict the staff and apprentices of the Carpenter’s Boat Shop in Pemaquid, where her husband works and where the construction of Monhegan Skiffs takes place in a brilliantly lit post-and-beam workshop. Her visual exploration of this landscape of craftsmanship and Maine tradition is a recent development in her work. Her paintings highlight the windows of The Carpenter’s Boat Shop, linking these new images to her window paintings of the past.

Her characteristic repurposing of previously painted panels also continues to play a significant role in this new work.

Almost all the paintings in “Maine: Work & Play” are water-centric. Individually and collectively they flow back and forth, into and out of each other as they ask the work-play question. They are not comprehensive in any one answer; instead they tease the memory, day dream and desire of viewers.

Under her maiden name Jessica Stammen, Ives is editor of The Maine, an online publication about the wonders of the state. She contributes as The Outsider and has selected several essays to accompany her paintings in this exhibition.

For more information, please visit www.jessicastammen.com or contact Bonnie Pardue, Art Coordinator for the Smith Union, at 207-725-3902 or bpardue@bowdoin.edu.