Head of the Harbor Gallery

Where’s Roger?

Wed, 08/01/2018 - 12:30pm

Story Location:
129 Commercial Street
Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538
United States

    Artist Roger Milinowski’s Head of the Harbor Gallery begins its 18th year in a new Boothbay Harbor location. Fans and art lovers will find the gallery at 129 Commercial St., formerly CoCo Vivo Art For Living, adjacent to The Shipyard at Boothbay Harbor.

    A contemporary realist artist with a passion for plein air painting, Milinowski is also a sculptor working in wood, marble and bronze. His cocoaboa wood and metal “Venus Star Trap” will keep your imagination going. The grain of the wood and the smooth texture invite you to touch – but the metal and its being a Venus fly trap and all will make you retract your hand! The bronze “Seated Figure” is safe to touch, and would make for a wild, unique full-sized chair.

    His oil paintings convey his affection for his subjects: boats, marine/working waterfront scenes, seascapes, landscapes and old wooden structures found in Maine, South Carolina, Nantucket, Monhegan Island, Ireland, Tuscany … if he’s been there, he’s painted it.

    Taking in his work, it’s hard deciding what to check out first. Milinowski’s classical style evokes a feeling of nostalgia within the viewer. You can’t control it; it just happens. And it’s a delightful departure.

    Milinowski, a.k.a. “Rem-Brandt-Ski,” gets a lot of commission work and often from people who want a painting that’s sold but still in the gallery or they like a painting, but want a larger (sometimes much larger) version of it.

    “It’s tricky – they see the original one, and they want it exact – and it’s not going to be. I’ve painted up to four different sized versions of several paintings for clients.”

    In addition to commission work, Milinowski has been revisiting paintings “that just don’t work.” He refers to them as “dogs,” if you can believe it. “I have a pound,” he said jocularly.

    One of the works he touched up is “Ocean Surf,” an 18” by 24” oil with frothy breaking waves and cormorants in the distance. “I just added a little green over here (he pointed to the space just above the breaking wave in the forefront). It’s a soft palette. There’s no popping your eye out here.”

    Maybe not, but there is eye-poppingly fantastic art and sculpture at the gallery.

    For more on Milinowski, visit www.headoftheharborgallery.com, or better still, pay him a visit at the gallery (350-5969) open daily 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.