“I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you - Nobody - too?”
— Emily Dickinson
Lora Whelan lives way Downeast on the shores of Passamaquoddy and Cobscook bays on the border of Maine and Canada. She is self-taught. She spent her childhood between New York City and Vermont, and early on found her eyes caught by the similarities between the waters raging down Fifth Avenue from broken water mains and the spring run-off pounding down mountain sides and moving boulders in normally quiet streams. She was mesmerized by the grid lines found in broken concrete sidewalks, lazy drips of asphalt patching in the roads, the waves of planted corn and Timothy curving and sliding around rock piles and divided by barbed wire fencing and tree lines. Her art explores how our stories are formed by the cracks and crevices of memory and emotions wrapped in perceptions.
She has lived in New York City, Vermont, New Mexico and Maine, where she currently maintains her studio practice.
“I love stories. I am a storyteller with paint, canvas, drips and lines. My art is for everyone who is dazzled by the abstract in the concrete, and the concrete in the abstract; for everyone who has submerged themselves next to the marsh grasses, keeping their eyes just above the waterline to watch the damselflies navigate the vertically and horizontally moving world.”
2026 Group Show Invitational, MOTHERS Gallery, Columbia Falls, ME, Date TBD
2026 One-person show, Cyr Gallery, Bangor Public Library, Bangor, ME
2025 Affordable Art Fair/Gallery Sitka, New York, NY
2025 One-person show, MOTHERS Gallery, Columbia Falls, ME
2025 One-person show, Lubec Memorial Library, Lubec, ME
2025 Show invitation, with Richard Van Buren, Leslie Bowman, Cheryl Denbow, Atelier Laforest, Dennysville, ME
2025 Group Show, “Spring Greens,” Gallery Sitka, RI
2025 Summer Season Show, Full Fathom Five Gallery, Eastport, ME
2024 Ocean Land Lines, one-person show, Gallery Sitka, Shirley, MA
2024 Echoes of Place, one-person show, Washington Street Gallery, Eastport, ME
2024 Gallery Sitka Group Show, New Dawn Arts Center, Ashburnham, MA
2024 Summer season show, Full Fathom Five Gallery, Eastport, ME
2023 Illuminaries, group show, Washington Street Gallery, Eastport, ME
2022 Gallery show, Full Fathom Five, Eastport, ME
2021 Membership shows, Eastport Gallery, ME
2020 Group show, “Four Elements.” Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2020 Group show, “Rebellion.” Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2020 Group show, “Winter Comes I and II.” Washington Street Gallery, Eastport, ME
2019 One-person show, “Angels and Furies.” Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2019 Group show, “Abstract Only.” Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2019 Group show, “Dancing.” Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2019 Group show, “Self-portraits.” Washington Street Gallery, Eastport, ME
2019 One-person show, “Small works,” Dastardly Dicks,” Eastport, ME
2018 Two-person show, “Harmony/Disharmony.” Washington Street Gallery, Eastport, ME
2018 Group show, “Flowers.” Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2018 Group show, “Pirates.” Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2018 Group show, “Nothing but Nudes.” Washington Street Gallery, Eastport, ME
2017 One-person show, “Islands.” Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2017 Group show, “Nest.” Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2017 Group show, “Shadows.” Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2017 Group show, “Fogged in.” Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
Artist Talks and Engagement
2024 Summer youth program. Working with students to make marks from found textures, and discussing the Echoes of Place show. Washington Street Gallery, Eastport, ME
2024 Echoes of Place, Washington Street Gallery, Eastport, ME
2023 From smudge to line: Nine years of process into art. Artist talk, Eastport Arts Center, Eastport, ME
2021 Writer Catherine Lee, virtual interview, Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2020 Writer Katherine Stanley Obando, virtual interview, Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2020 Poet Jason Gundrom-Whitney, virtual interview, Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2020 Art Talk, Life in Washington County project: Life in the Virtual Age, Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2019 Angels and Furies show, WSHD Radio, Eastport, ME
2019 Art Talk, interview with sculptor Richard Van Buren and dancer Batya Zamir, Eastport Gallery, Eastport, ME
2018 Art Talk: Endangered/Extinct show, Washington Street Gallery, Eastport, ME