My goal has remained constant throughout my career: to capture a single moment in time. As an artist, my job is to observe as much as to create. With every second that passes, light changes, colors adjust, and the slightest physical shift occurs in nature. Each piece is based on a real place, a moment I have experienced and been inspired by. There is something unique about being alone with nature—a quiet that connects me like no other. Only this solitude, whether outside or in the studio, allows me to let the landscape reveal itself to me. Living in Kennebunkport, I am immersed daily in the area of my greatest inspiration. It is a place where nature provides a lifetime of exploration and study, where the fog can roll in at any moment and change the landscape, and where the greens of the marsh change over to the warm ochre of autumn.

I try to convey this sense of place, of The American Place, whether it is a farm pasture field with a working barn or a lobster shack along a wharf at the rugged rocky coast of Maine or a once fish shack weathered that now serves as a summer residence at the water’s edge for some lucky person or family on the soft hot sandy beaches of Cape Cod. I try to convey that moment of joy and presence through the scenes of my paintings, without intention for nostalgia or sentimentality, realizing though that those elements are inherent in those ancient subjects, giving our imaginations a bit of free reign to roam like the clouds, wondering who has lived and worked here and how their lives were along the way, how different and how the same as yours and mine.

Patrick Ploude has been a part of the Maine Art family for over fifteen years. His sculpture has captured the hearts of many of our collectors, and we are always excited when new works come in. Therefore, you can understand the enthusiasm he left in the wake of his latest visit. Among the nine new sculptures, Patrick brought us are a few ducks and loons, his Spring Arrivals.

Patrick Plourde shares how he works from the thousands of elements strewn about his studio floor and tables. “I have to separate the pieces and parts into small piles,” he laughs. “Okay, these are horse parts, these are turkey parts, these are flower parts.  I know what I want them to become. Sorting them is a necessary part of my process.”

In these works, I pair my dual interests of figurative imagery and colorful abstraction to create paintings that capture the unique feeling and distinct associations of the body suspended in water and time. This series allows me to paint what I love – the figure – while exploring areas of fluid distortion that exist naturally in turbulent, sunlight-drenched water. Water lends meaning to the work as a vehicle for life, cleansing, change, renewal, and death. I find this unique atmosphere extraordinary.