Sondra Bogdonoff, “Through the Trees,” linen weaving Photo courtesy of the artist

The “5.5” exhibition at Cove Street Arts in Portland (through Feb. 1) marks a milestone for the gallery and arts space that opened in June 2019. The name refers to the fact that it could not be compiled and hung on the actual fifth anniversary, so it is actually Cove Street’s five-and-a-half-year birthday. It brings together the work of 22 artists the gallery has shown in the intervening years since they hosted their inaugural reception, which drew approximately 500 people.

Munira Naqui, “Dark Night,” acrylic on wood Photo by Jay York

Before looking at the show, it’s instructive to understand what the presence of Cove Street Arts has meant for East Bayside, an area of town that back then was a much less trodden and vital neighborhood. Co-directors Kelley Lehr and John Danos were not the first to set up an arts business in this light-manufacturing sector of the city. Zero Station moved to Anderson Street a couple of years after opening their maker’s space and frame shop in South Portland in 2000. It functioned as studio, frame shop and gathering place for artists, with an irregular exhibition schedule that has become consistent (and consistently interesting) over subsequent years.

Running with Scissors, an artists’ studio building, came along in 2003. Though it is not open to the public except by appointment or invitation (except during community events), it — and other makers’ spaces such as Maine Studio Works nearby — have contributed to the artistic life of East Bayside.

Lissa Hunter, “Duet,” mixed media Photo courtesy of the artist

But what Cove Street Arts and the Indigo Arts Alliance (IAA), which opened across the street from Cove Street just one month prior, have brought to the neighborhood are twin anchors that have attracted many other businesses and made East Bayside a buzzy cultural hub. Indigo’s expansive mission to generate partnerships, curate exhibitions, host artist residencies and otherwise lift up art by Black and Brown artists continues to leave its imprint on countless programs and events in and around Portland, nationally and, if its current trajectory continues, globally. IAA is not a formal exhibition facility itself, though the community can attend its annual pop-up shop and other programming (last year Indigo hosted National Endowment for the Arts chair Maria Rosario Jackson in the building for a community conversation about the arts landscape in Maine).

Sean Alonzo Harris, “White Turnip,” digital archival inkjet print Photo courtesy of the artist

In Cove Street, what Portland got is 8,000 square feet of Chelsea-like gallery space (meaning the famed art district in New York City) where literally hundreds of Maine artists have shown over the last five-plus years. “5.5” takes up four galleries in the space. (“Lateral Passage,” through Jan. 11, features the work of Jenny Scheu and her son Tom Ryan; in another gallery “Phone Photos,” through Feb. 1, showcases images taken with, as the title indicates, smartphones).

So how does it look? In a word, gorgeous. But on second viewing, I became aware of a few things I had not noticed during the opening, chief among them the way the exhibition is a compendious statement of Cove Street’s distinctive identity. This is an enormous space to fill throughout the year, which gives Cove Street the opportunity to highlight a number of media (ceramic, sculpture, painting, photography, mixed media assemblage, fiber art, printmaking, neon, the occasional video, and more). It also opens the door to every genre, from traditional landscape painting and abstract expressionism to geometric minimalism and conceptual art. One or another of these may not be your cup of tea. But as they say about erratic weather patterns, just wait a few minutes and it will change.

David Row, “Giza,” oil and acrylic on panel Photo courtesy of the artist

One great pleasure of “5.5” is the way the show is hung, which enables those who are really paying attention to discern various themes and dialogues among the works. There are beautifully synchronous juxtapositions — for example, Roy Germon’s colorful landscapes adjacent to William Zingaro’s metal sculptures that appear like nothing so much as abstracted topographical models. There is a similar chemistry between the incised decorations of ceramist Paul Heroux’s “Tall Bottle I” and “Tall Bottle II” and Alison Hildreth’s “Waypoints,” a trio of her aerial cartographies that depict the transient presence of human civilizations against the vaster universe.

Or we find David Row’s “Giza,” a shaped, gold-painted panel scored in such a way that it forms three triangles, near Miklos Pogany’s “Owl Sarcophagus,” depicting the title bird in an Egyptian-style coffin. The connection here is subtle, evoking ancient Egypt obliquely through the abstraction of three triangles (referencing the pyramids at Giza and, in its gold, pharaonic divinity) and the mummification and burial of an owl, considered in Egyptian culture a gatekeeper to the underworld.

Louis Pierre Lachapelle’s “Social Disparity” Photo courtesy of the artist

This last pairing is telling in terms of the gallery’s orientations. There is both a soulfulness to many works—whether minimalist or expressive, figurative or abstract—as well as a keen attunement to the essential spirituality that lies at the core of artistic creativity. This does not mean all works are soothing or easy. A painting like Louis-Pierre Lachapelle’s “Social Disparity” is tough. Violent, angry, aggressive and destabilizing, it depicts two eagles against faintly visible stars of the American flag locked in a to-the-death battle. The center of the painting is a thick and savage impasto of tarry black flecked with bloody red spots. One could hardly find a more discouraging (or accurate) image of the two Americas in which we live. Exhibiting this work is a risky leap of faith for Cove Street.

Kayla Mohammadi, “Surf Point Summer,” oil on canvas Photo courtesy of the artist

Across from it is “Angel Dancing On The Head Of A Pin,” [sic], a sculpture by Stephanie Rayner. It depicts a metal cross with an artillery casing protruding upward from of its center. If we follow it up, atop the casing is a syringe-like object supporting an animal vertebra with wings. The lower portion would seem to be saying something about the wars perpetrated by organized religion. But by the time we reach the top, we are immersed in a world of redemption through spirituality. Nearby is a glass sculpture titled “Spirit Bear,” an Indigenous people’s evocation of a mammal believed to be a guide to enchanted places.

Also in this space are three of Elise Ansel’s lyrical abstractions of “Veronese’s Venus” and Daniel Minter’s “Turned So Quick I Thought He Had a Twin.” Venus, of course, is a goddess associated with love, beauty and fertility, positive qualities of the universe that offer still more redemption. And Minter’s art has to do with the legacy of slavery, but also, and importantly, about the way the displacement and violence inherent in it leads not only to resilience, but also a profound sense of community and wholeness. The relationship between animal instincts (defensiveness, warmongering, hatred, aggression) and our higher soul’s potential is exquisitely and delicately calibrated in this gallery.

Charlie Hewitt, “Blue Deuce,” paint and vinyl on stainless steel with acrylic LED and light bulbs Photo courtesy of the artist

There is much more. In the joyous and ebullient department are the colorful paintings of Kayla Mohammadi (some of her recent, and best, work) and Charlie Hewitt’s light sculptures (an appropriate greeting for visitors in the gallery’s glass-walled conference room). We have the dark, wavy-patterned paintings of mudflats and tidal eddies by John Walker, and abstract geometric works by Munira Naqui (which, despite their formal rigor and precision still transmit a soothing warmth and serenity and pair nicely with geometric wood sculptures by Jamie Johnston across the space). There is the photography of Sean Alonzo Harris (black-and-white images infused with texture and memory) and Tim Greenway (color photos that display interesting textural mixes and urban geometries), the complex optical illusion weavings of Sondra Bogdanoff, and on and on.

As a landmark catalog of Cove Street Arts’ first five years, it could have been disparate and confused. But somehow it holds together in fascinating ways that leave one feeling as if it’s all of a piece.

IF YOU GO
WHAT: “5.5”
WHERE: Cove Street Arts, 71 Cove St., Portland
WHEN: Through Feb. 1
HOURS: 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday
ADMISSION: Free
INFO: 207-808-8911, covestreetarts.com