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Maxwell Nolin has spent plenty of time in Maine’s rural landscapes, having spent eight years working on a Montville farm after he moved to the state in 2011.
But it’s only been recently that Nolin, a longtime artist who left farming five years ago to become a full-time painter, began making a focused effort to put that natural scenery onto the canvas.
At just 34, the classically trained Nolin has quickly made a name for himself as a portrait painter. Now based in Belfast, he has landed commissions to create official oil portraits of federal judges and college administrators. He has also captured many other subjects in a realist style.
But in his latest collection, which is now on display at Carver Hill Gallery in Camden, he’s shifted his perspective a bit. He has painted portraits of several Belfast residents looking away from the viewer — and crucially, they’re set against landscape backgrounds.
In one, a man walks his dog through a misty field. In another, a woman sits on a wooden railing, looking out onto a body of water with woods on the opposite shore.
“The figure in the landscape is very new for me. I got a lot of training with portraits in the figure, but I never really tackled landscape painting,” Nolin said. “Living in Maine, I felt like I have to paint this beautiful landscape that we live in, it’s incredible. How could I not take advantage of that?”
Originally from Andover, Massachusetts, Nolin had long considered a career in art before making the leap in his late 20s. After high school, he even enrolled in the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University before choosing to step away, because its curriculum clashed with his own artistic direction.
“I wanted to paint like Caravaggio, Michelangelo, but they were teaching art that was conceptual, contemporary, not really what I was looking for. It wasn’t the type of realism that I felt an innate connection with,” Nolin said. “I thought, ‘I’m going to farm, live off the land and do work that I think is meaningful and see where that takes me.’”
But even as Nolin began farming in Maine, he still spent his winters painting. Eventually — after attempting to start his own farm with his then-partner — he connected with Linden Frederick, a Belfast-based painter who mentored him as he returned to the art world.
At Frederick’s suggestion, Nolin completed a three-month classical realism intensive at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy in 2018, kickstarting his new career. Using some of the principles he learned from farming — especially regularly showing up — he soon found growing opportunities to show his work and get private commissions. He also teaches private painting lessons.
For a while, Nolin said that he “was emulating a lot of artists that I liked, that I admired and I was inspired by; it never felt like it was my own.”
But now, he’s starting to find a signature style that’s reflected in his newest works. He has found a way to fuse portraiture with landscape realism, which he hopes raise questions of philosophy, identity and personal impression for the viewer.
“It’s an ongoing thing, but I think I’m further understanding what I like to see in my paintings,” he said.
Unlike Nolin’s past pieces, figures in this collection are turned away from the viewer in order to foster a greater sense of curiosity and internalism, he said.
“I love that mystery and that it almost allows the viewer to make it about them. If you only see the back of the head, it opens up that world of narrative and interpretation that I really like, and I will continue to explore that moving forward,” Nolin said.
Nolin credits Carver Hill Gallery — where he has shown his work several times — with helping to bring recognition.
“I’ve experimented a lot, and my work is finding its audience now, which feels really nice,” Nolin said. “They’ve definitely helped me to find that audience.”
His new exhibit runs Sept. 18 to Oct. 12.
