A new exhibition at PhoPa Gallery opens this week featuring works on paper by Down East artists Avy Claire, Anne-Claude Cotty and Nancy Manter.

The exhibition, “Beneath the Surface,” opens Wednesday at the gallery, at 132 Washington Ave. in Portland. A free public reception for the artists will be from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday. The exhibition will end with an artist talk at 2 p.m. on May 31.

Each artist works independently and in several mediums, but their abstract images come together to offer a rich visual dialogue for the viewer’s experience. Claire, of Blue Hill, compiles elements such as photography and text to juxtapose dissonant ideas of logic and disorder. Cotty, of Stonington, is exhibiting her pinhole winter landscape photographs that melt into poetic abstraction. Manter, formerly of Seal Cove, uses charcoal, gesso, ink and conte crayon in her drawings that explore geological elements of northern Wyoming. Capturing two opposing yet dependent environments above and below ground, Manter’s drawings are at times disjointed and at others contiguous.

Claire recently exhibited at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport and has been included in the Portland Museum of Art Biennial. Cotty’s work has been shown at the University of Maine Museum of Art, Colby College Art Museum and the Portland Museum of Art. Manter’s work is included in permanent collections at the British Museum, Brooklyn Museum and Boston Public Library.

The gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and by appointment.

For more information, call 517-0200.


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