Exhibition | A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTRÖM

August 15 - September 12, 2024

5-7PM THURSDAY, AUGUST 15
Opening Reception and Camden Art Walk

1-2PM FRIDAY, AUGUST 16
Anneli Skaar Lecture at the Farnsworth Museum, Register here: $10; $8 for Farnsworth members. Tickets include museum admission.

"Never shall I forget the sensations of awe, horror, and admiration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of a funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony, but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth, as the rays of the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I have already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along the black walls, and far away down into the inmost recesses of the abyss.”

From Edgar Allan Poe’s short story ;“A Descent into the Maelström” which is set in Norway’s Lofoten Archipelago, site of Moskenestraumen, one of the largest whirlpool currents in the world. Though Poe had never been to Norway, the myths surrounding this place were well known from maps as far back as the 1500s. The paintings are illustrations for a reimagining of Poe's short story.