Opening Reception October 3, 2025 | 5pm-7pm

Dating back to 1978, CMCA’s Biennial is the longest running survey of contemporary art by artists with ties to Maine. This edition features 29 artists selected from a pool of over 450 applicants by jurors Keith Fox, Tom Keyes, and William Hathaway. Well over three quarters of the artists are full-time Maine residents living in communities from York to Bar Harbor to Orono; others have longstanding seasonal ties to the state or have participated in residencies and fellowships at a number of its prestigious schools and artist-endowed foundations. Though certain motifs and strategies recur across the jurors’ selections—seafaring and the horizon, uncanny interior scenes and landscapes, narratives of the vitality of marginalized communities and the dignity of labor, and the state’s ongoing love affair with painting—their choices reflect an open-minded, non-thematic, and intergenerational understanding of Maine’s role in contemporary art.

Serving as a juror for CMCA's 2025 Biennial has been a deeply thought-provoking and rewarding experience. The submissions reflected both a high level of technical skill and creativity, as well as an acute awareness of the unprecedented environmental and geopolitical times we currently seek to understand and navigate. The Maine landscape figures prominently in many of the artists’ entries. It serves as a setting, a character, a symbol of our collective resilience, and even as indicator of our increasing vulnerability. We are reminded that while the Maine landscape might root us in the local, it calls on us to reflect and question all that is changing around us on a global level. Our selections offer a powerful insight into how these Maine artists are responding to these challenges through creativity with a nod toward urgency. – Tom Keyes

It was an honor to reconnect and acquaint myself with the thriving visual arts community in my home state of Maine. While I was already familiar with some of the incredible artists who applied, many were new to me, which inspired excitement about the present and the future of the arts in Maine. – William Hathaway

About the 2025 Jurors: Tom Keyes + Keith Fox | William Hathaway

Keith Fox retired in December 2024 after eleven years as CEO of Phaidon Press and Artspace. Previously, he served as President of BusinessWeek and McGraw-Hill Professional. Keith is the founding Chairman of the New York City AIDS Memorial. He holds a BA in History from Brown University and an MBA from Columbia University. Tom Keyes is a Principal and Portfolio Manager at Zweig-DiMenna, a New York City-based investment fund. Tom has been a member of the investment management team for over 20 years of his 30-year career on Wall Street. He is an avid collector of contemporary art and includes visual arts and animal welfare among his philanthropic interests. Tom holds a BSFS in International Political Science from Georgetown University and an MBA from the Graduate Business School at Columbia University.

William Hathaway is a Partner and Sales Director at Night Gallery in Los Angeles, where he has been instrumental in the gallery’s success for nearly a decade. Will’s previous experience includes roles at Gagosian Gallery, L.A. Louver, and Blum and Poe. A native of Mount Desert Island in Maine, Will maintains close ties to his home state and is committed to promoting Maine artists. This dedication led to Night Gallery’s partnership with DUNES Gallery in Portland. In August 2024, the two galleries presented “The Wrong Sea,” an exhibition at DUNES featuring historic and contemporary artists with ties to Maine, celebrating the state’s significant role in art history.