Patrick Plourde in BIRD – A Maine Art Show

Patrick Plourde by Ric Kasini Kadour

Patrick Plourde studied art at the Maine College of Art and received his Masters of Fine Art from Washington University. For over twenty-five years, he has used vintage steel and found objects to express natural forms: various plants, flowers, seeds, and birds. His sculptures play with form, color, and humor to engage the viewer. Plourde converts everyday objects, like croquet balls, into sculptural elements that evoke classical forms and industry. In his depictions of birds, there is also an element of drawing, using the metal to make the lines of a heron’s back in a manner that resembles the bird’s plumage.

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Joan Miró once explained the success of his sculpture, “A rich and vigorous material seems necessary to me in order to give the viewer that smack in the face that must happen before reflection intervenes. In this way, poetry is expressed through a plastic medium, and it speaks its own language.” Plourde’s sculptures achieve success in a similar way. The various pieces of steel and other found parts come together to form a Vulture. What was once a tool or a spoke or a gear, becomes a neck, a talon, or tightly held pair of wings.

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His work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Log Home Designs, and Maine Home and Design. Collectors include Ralph Lauren, Robert De Niro, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, Toucan Corporation (Florida), The Portland (Maine) Museum of Art, and Payson Art Gallery (Maine). He has completed a number of public and private commissions, including Untitled-Armillary, on Commercial Street in Portland, Maine near the Casco Bay Ferry terminal.

BIRD shows at Maine Art Shows at 10 Chase Hill from August 8th to September 7th.  We are open from 11-5 every day.  You can also see the show in its entirety on-line at BIRD.

If you like Patrick’s work, Maine Art Paintings and Sculpture has a lovely collection in the gallery on 14 Western Ave in Kennebunk and on-line on his Artist Page.

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