Two remarkable artists whose works are currently being showcased in Maine exhibitions created extraordinary bodies of work before their untimely departures from this world. Joseph Fiore passed away in 2008 at the age of 83, while Baxter Koziol tragically died this past February at just 29 years old. Both artists left behind rich collections that continue to inspire and captivate audiences.
Fiore's retrospective exhibition at Maine Art Gallery in Wiscasset, titled "Fiore at 100: Maine Observed" (running through August 24), celebrates the centenary of his birth with an expansive display featuring over 50 works. Meanwhile, "An Absolute Everything" at Buoy Gallery in Kittery (through September 27) presents a smaller but incredibly powerful collection of Koziol's creations.
One of the most fascinating aspects of "Fiore at 100" is observing how this accomplished painter traced a circular artistic journey from abstraction to representation and back to abstraction again throughout his career. Fiore was born in Cleveland, Ohio, as the son of a founding member of the city's orchestra, which likely explains the palpable musicality that can be detected in his abstract compositions. In 1946, he left home to study at the legendary Black Mountain College in North Carolina, later relocating to New York and eventually settling in Maine.
The earliest painting featured in this exhibition is "Yellow Landscape" from 1957-58. While viewers can discern the landscape referenced in the title, the forms are abstracted rather than specifically detailed. The colors are not naturalistic but instead bright and deeply saturated, creating a vibrant visual experience.
However, Fiore soon began producing work that was almost photographically representational, a bold artistic choice that was highly unfashionable during a time when the art world was captivated by Pop Art and Minimalism movements. Both of these movements emphasized the obscuration of traditional craft in painting, and it's tempting to attribute Fiore's rejection of these trends to the authentic beauty of Maine's landscape, which may have influenced him to move away from these slick, cool genres toward something more emotionally resonant and soulful.
In the middle section of the exhibition, Fiore's masterful craftsmanship is evident throughout. Oil paintings such as "View from Bald Rock" (1971) and "Katahdin" celebrate Maine's natural landscape with striking realism, though not in the manner of contemporary artists like Richard Estes. Fiore's paint strokes and technique are not only clearly visible but absolutely resplendent, with expansive views that convey a palpable sense of emotion and natural majesty.
Then Fiore's style shifted once again. His brushwork began loosening and forms became more impressionistic and atmospheric, as seen in works like "Wetlands" from 1979. According to Suzette McAvoy's writings in the exhibition catalog, quoting from an application letter Fiore wrote to the Santa Fe Institute, a teaching stint in France's Dordogne region provided him with the moving experience of visiting prehistoric sites and witnessing the beginnings of human artistic expression, which ultimately returned him to abstraction.
This final return to abstraction, however, carried a significant difference from his earlier abstract work. Fiore's paintings now became deeply symbolist, filled with hieroglyphics and markings that evoked ancient cultures and civilizations. He also recognized and incorporated the powerful influence that seasonal and celestial events—such as eclipses and solstices—held for prehistoric peoples. This period is arguably his most intellectually and artistically interesting phase.
A painting like "Solar Eclipse," created in 2003, five years before his death, represents what could be considered a nearly perfect artistic achievement. While the exhibition catalog references influences from masters like Picasso, Braque, Gris, Matisse, and Münter, one can also detect affinities in form, color quality, and paint application to diverse American artists such as Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove, and even Will Barnet's late abstract works.
The exhibition showcases beautiful painting across a variety of media, but the oil-on-paper paintings carry particular resonance and impact. Perhaps it's the exceptional color saturation or the way paper affects and blurs the precision of line work, but these pieces possess a remarkable sumptuousness and a quality that combines softness with bold form, making them feel viscerally organic and tactile. The watercolors, while technically proficient and visually lovely, feel somewhat pale by comparison.
When young artist Baxter Koziol from Shushan, New York, burst onto the art scene, his arrival was like the explosion of a supernova. His Master of Fine Arts thesis installation included a wall-sized composition with a distinctly high Baroque sensibility called "POSTED 2: private property." For this ambitious work, Koziol had meticulously wrapped action figures, dolls, a toy car and motorcycle, goggles, dinosaurs, a unicorn, and much more in orange fabrics, then agglomerated them in the center of the composition.
The arrangement possessed a neoclassical formality, yet its circular configuration and the way objects seemed to dissipate as they moved centrifugally toward the edges of the picture plane created the impression that they were combusting outward, as if emerging from some white dwarf star or other cosmic source. This created an onslaught of both heroic and mundane imagery that seemed to advance directly toward the viewer. "POSTED" carried the dramatic intensity of a Bernini sculpture, while the darker back side gave the impression of a black hole drawing all light into itself.
The title of this work, particularly the "private property" portion, reveals something profound about Koziol's deeply serious feelings regarding personal responsibility for the material detritus of one's life. While many contemporary artists utilize recycled and repurposed materials, Koziol's approach was uniquely personal and philosophical. Several years before he took his own life, he recorded a video with Lights Out Gallery that illustrated the gravity of this belief. "People go through a lot of things," he explained. "You consume things and there is waste... The concept of trash really makes me uncomfortable. There's something you have that you've accepted responsibility for and then it goes over here and it's no longer your responsibility and it's no longer your trash."
Consequently, Koziol created art exclusively from his own discarded materials. This practice began with patching his personal clothing and evolved from literal wearable items to what he termed "theoretical wearables." These took the form of suits and blankets specifically designed to support particular activities or identities.
Fascinated by action figures and their exaggerated muscular physiques, he created an entire body of work called "Man with 1000 Abs," where each individual abdominal muscle was a hand-sewn, hand-stuffed square stitched together with other squares. He fashioned these elements into comforters (a clever wordplay on the comfort derived from residing within a fixed identity), jackets (which viewers cannot help but perceive as artificial muscles that less physically fit individuals could wear to feel more built and powerful), and even underwear adorned with abs positioned on the crotch area (using abs as symbols for male sexual potency).
Koziol created both lighthearted blankets—such as those designed for watching videos, into which he stitched specially designed recesses to hold the videos themselves—and blankets with much darker, more serious themes. One example was a blanket intended for survival situations that he displayed in the Center for Maine Contemporary Arts Biennial in 2020. This survival blanket contained integrated ropes, gloves, communication devices, and other emergency equipment.
He also constructed tents and designed specialized suits to be worn inside these tents. Running throughout all of this work were powerful metaphors about creating protected, safe environments, as well as appropriate clothing for interacting within these carefully constructed spaces. One cannot help but wonder if these creations also functioned as a form of soft, protective armor against the harsh realities of the world.
The current Buoy Gallery exhibition includes "POSTED" along with substantial earlier work from Koziol's career. It's particularly interesting to observe, for instance, painting after painting depicting sunsets, which reveal both an artist who could use this traditional medium effectively and someone clearly preoccupied with transitions and liminal moments.
The show features various blankets, including a metallic fabric piece titled "Man with 1000 Abs 2000" that represents a marvel of obsessive, meticulous fabrication. There's also "History Blanket – khaki to chrome," though the specific historical narrative being conveyed remains unclear. However, the materials and incorporated objects like military canteens carry distinctly militaristic associations. Notably, "POSTED" was originally installed with a tank positioned so its gun barrel pointed directly at the orange wall.
These works raise profound questions about Koziol's artistic intentions and personal struggles. Was he commenting on warfare and humanity's efforts at control and domination? Did these pieces stem from childhood play and imagination? Was this exceptionally talented artist a kind of innocent savant for whom the pressures of adult reality and societal expectations of masculinity—as exemplified by the supposed invincibility and exaggerated strength of his beloved action figures—simply became overwhelming? Or was he attempting to warn viewers to reconnect with their fundamental humanity and treat each other and the Earth with greater kindness?
While it would be both unfair and foolish to speculate definitively about such deeply personal matters, the exhibition clearly emanates a profound melancholy centered around the tragic reality that so much more artistic achievement might have been possible if Koziol had lived to full maturity.
Both exhibitions offer Maine residents and visitors unique opportunities to engage with the work of these two distinctly different but equally compelling artists. "Fiore at 100: Maine Observed" runs through August 24 at Maine Art Gallery, located at 15 Warren Street in Wiscasset, with gallery hours from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday. Admission is free. "An Absolute Everything" continues through September 27 at Buoy Gallery, 2 Government Street in Kittery, open 3 to 10 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, or by appointment. Admission is also free.
