Image: Courthouse Gallery, Vancouver, Sooke
Gregory Dunham’s ‘The Fading Tide’ brings together watercolor paintings focused on the gradual disappearance of a traditional way of life along the Maine coast. The exhibition is on view from August 14 through September 10, 2026, at Courthouse Gallery Fine Art in Ellsworth, Maine, with an artist reception scheduled for August 19 from 5 to 7pm.
The exhibition takes the region’s aging working structures as its central subject. Weathered clam shacks, abandoned smokehouses and water-worn skiffs appear throughout Dunham’s intricate paintings, which the gallery describes as attentive to the quiet beauty and individual character of these sites. His palette is built around muted earth tones, cool blues and grays, giving the works a restrained atmosphere suited to buildings and boats marked by exposure, use and time.
Among the works listed by the gallery is ‘Grey Skiff’, a watercolor measuring 17.25 by 30 inches. Other paintings identify particular coastal locations and structures, including ‘Lobsterman’s House, Rockland’, ‘Kitchen Smoke, Castine’, ‘Red House, Bailey Island’ and ‘Smokehouse, Grand Manan’. The exhibition also includes views of Monhegan, Vinalhaven, Lubec, Carver’s Harbor, Addison and Ellsworth, extending its geographical range across the Maine coast and nearby maritime communities.
Several works focus directly on remnants of coastal labor and seasonal activity. ‘Morton’s Waterfront Clam Shack, Addison’, ‘Abandoned Smokehouse at Bailey’s Mistake’ and ‘McCurdy Smokehouse Museum, Lubec’ make buildings the subjects of record and observation, while ‘Getting Ready for the Season’ and ‘Out for Winter, Carvers Harbor’ suggest the changing rhythms of activity and absence embedded in the shoreline. The gallery’s description frames these subjects as evidence of a traditional way of life in retreat, rather than as untouched scenic motifs.
The exhibition’s emphasis on Maine places it within the regional programme of Courthouse Gallery Fine Art, whose website lists the venue at 6 Court Street in Ellsworth. During the same August 14–September 10 period, the gallery is also presenting ‘My Maine: A Retrospective’, devoted to Maine painter Philip Barter (1939–2024), and ‘A Shared Horizon’, a two-person exhibition of work by Heidi Daub and Richard Keen. Those exhibitions are separate from Dunham’s presentation, which is devoted specifically to the coast’s deteriorating structures and working landscapes.
Dunham’s reception is listed for Wednesday, August 19, from 5 to 7pm. The Fading Tide remains scheduled at Courthouse Gallery Fine Art in Ellsworth through September 10, 2026.
