The Canvas
Carl Little
Alison Goodwin’s Saint Fisherman
In religious paintings, a nimbus of gold encircling the head of a figure signifies holiness—a mark of the sacred. When the painter Alison Goodwin gives a Maine fisherman dashing over the waves in a motorboat one of these golden headpieces, she draws on several centuries of iconography. And in doing so, she elevates this simple man in his waterproof Grundens to, if not sainthood, the status of blessed symbol.
In Goodwin’s rendering, this man in his yellow cap, enveloped in the odors of fish guts and gasoline, is deserving of special honor. “I have a reverence for the way they make a living,” the painter explains, “battling nature day after day.” The fishermen not only keep Maine honest, they “give it a holiness.”
This is Saint Fisherman, intent on harvesting a living from the sea, dashing from his homely bait shack to some last vestige of working waterfront, preparing for another day on the Gulf of Maine. Less heroic than humble, he is more the kin of Marsden Hartley’s beloved Newfoundlanders than George Bellows’s larger-than-life Monhegan islanders.
With the energy of a folk artist, Goodwin employs a bold diagonal—a small boat—and simplified renderings of landscape elements—water, trees, clouds—to create her icon. The spinning-top-like motor churns the sea; bait spills over the edge of buckets; the prow of the boat seems ready to fly over treetops and ledges. With his large hands and determined shoulders, the fisher of the sea goes forth over the waters.
Represented by Greenhut Galleries of Portland for the past twenty years, Alison Goodwin is well known for her saturated, turbulent color and unruly, skewed perspectives. Her original work has been featured in numerous solo exhibits at the Greenhut and in galleries outside Maine, and her prints have been distributed worldwide.
Fish Guts and Gasoline, 2008
Acrylic paint, oil bar and pastel on Arches paper, 56 by 34 inches
Courtesy Greenhut Gallerie