Scout, oil on linen, 24 x 48"

Bye’s newest show Frayed Edges will open May 29 at Cove Street Arts in Portland, Maine. The Pennsylvania painter will be showing as many as 15 new works, all of them depicting areas of major cities that are past their prime and yet still being used, for better or worse. While past shows have featured the interiors of cities, including in New York City, the new show also has works that venture to the water. Two examples are Waterfront and Scout, both showing an industrial waterway in Maine.

Pandemic, oil on canvas, 30 x 40"

“Both paintings show areas that are near each other. In fact, you can see the big blue building in both paintings. Those docks have a randomness that I really enjoy. There are these vessels there just rotting in the water. Some are commercial boats and schooners,” he says. “I went down there at every time of day just to see the patinas of the place and all the objects that you can see. There’s everything from old fishing parts, machinery, Christmas decorations, old toys, garbage, ironwork of all kinds—all of it starts to look like abstract sculptures after awhile. The shapes can also be mysterious and wonderful, especially as the tides comes in and out.”

Ice, oil on board, 16 x 20"

For Bye, he’s never sure if the subjects he paints will remain in two, 10 or 20 years after he’s painted them. For all he knows, they will still be there mostly untouched in 50 years. And yet, development could come through in two weeks and change everything. A microcosm of this theme plays out in Ice, which shows an ice machine outside a bodega. The machine and surrounding wall are covered in graffiti. Bye’s painting freezes the scene in time, even as new graffiti is added within 24 hours of the artist’s visit to the location. Time waits for nothing.

Waterfront, oil on linen, 24 x 56"

“These paintings are compelling not only for their vibrance, complexity and skill level, but also for an exceptionally strong sense of place,” says gallery co-owner Kelley Lehr. “These works seem to transcend the visual sense, also evoking the sounds, smells and energy of the place depicted: the car horns, radios, sirens, human voices, and restaurant aromas typical of inner city neighborhoods full of run-down, often graffitied structures; the morose and musty stillness of the interior of a grand historic theater, abandoned to time’s slow, relentless unraveling; the briny smell of salt and sea, the cries of gulls, and the sound of boats bobbing softly against a wooden wharf. Bye renders his subjects ‘con amore,’ contrasting blurry, soft focus, abstracted areas with others sharp and rich in detail. The effect is simultaneously edgy and romantic.”