Emily Nelligan’s Landscape Self-Portraits Through Place
**Emily Nelligan: Capturing the Soul of the Cranberry Isles Through Charcoal**
The Cranberry Isles, an archipelago off the coast of Maine, have long been a symbol of serenity and beauty. Steeped in history, these islands evoke a sense of timeless connection between the land and the communities that have lived there. Once home to thriving harbor towns of boatbuilders and fishermen, the islands have witnessed a gradual shift in population dynamics. Though most of the year-round residents have dwindled over the last century, the islands remain a haven for seasonal visitors who are touched by their beauty. One such long-time visitor, Emily Nelligan, captured the haunting landscapes of the Cranberry Isles through her deeply intricate charcoal drawings.
Nelligan, who passed away in 2018, spent many summers on Great Cranberry Island. Despite living full-time in Connecticut, the rugged beauty of the Isles deeply inspired her, transforming her artwork into something akin to a lifelong self-portrait, with the islands themselves becoming her muse. A new exhibition at Alexandre Gallery titled *Emily Nelligan: Early Drawings* showcases pieces from the 1950s through the 1980s, serving as a meditation on the mystical atmosphere of the Cranberry Isles.
### Art Through the Lens of Memory and Landscape
Nelligan’s works are rooted in a type of subdued grandeur; they are modest in size but momentous in depth. Her nearly monochromatic charcoal compositions reflect her lifelong engagement with the land, capturing ephemeral lights, shadowy landscapes, and windswept coastlines. One recurring theme in her works is the play of light across the charcoal, neither too laden nor too washed out — expressing a deep connection with the natural patterns that shaped the islands for millennia before her.
Art critic Lauret Savoy observes in her acclaimed work *Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape* that land holds memories from the past, within it inscribed the layers of stories once lived but forgotten. Nelligan’s drawings, some swirling with movement like the tectonic forces of metamorphic rock, seem to capture this very essence — the idea that land, even seemingly frozen in time, continues to ripple with movement, memory, and latent stories etched in its surface.
### The Power of Charcoal: Simple Yet Deeply Expressive
For Nelligan, charcoal was her medium of choice, not only due to its affordability but because it became the perfect substance to articulate the shifting lights and shadows of the Cranberry Isles. Each stroke was filled with a brimming sense of place. Her drawing *1 September 62* (1962) exudes the quiet energy endemic to the rocky crags and windswept shores. Dark orbs begin as rocks but dissolve into bubbles or mist under the influence of shifting light. It’s art with a subtext: you’re not merely observing a scene but feeling the ancient pressure that left a mark on the landscape millions of years ago.
Nelligan’s drawings are deceptively simple in appearance, but they manage to encapsulate the cellular memory of the islands themselves. Deep contrasts between dark and light convey a geological awareness, as if her charcoal pieces resonate with the lava flows from the Paleozoic era or the ice-carved valleys prominent today in the Maine archipelago. Her adept usage of tonal shifts bridges the past and present, grounding the viewer in a landscape that feels as though it’s on the cusp of a dream — one foot in the real world, and another in a primordial ether.
### Intimate Landscapes, Expansive in Imagination
Looking at Nelligan’s works is like peering through small windows into an expansive world. Within her intimate, restrained sizes, whole universes materialize, folding the grandeur of a place like Great Cranberry Island into the palm of your hand. She had a tendency to obscure specific geography in her works, never quite letting the viewer feel ‘oriented.’
This disorientation is typified in works like *Toward Manset* (1982), which offers a void cutting across the paper and bleeding into the edges. The top is punctuated with pines, the dark form below rippling with ribbons of gray. These could be clouds, water, or rock, yet Nelligan leaves their identities comfortably ambiguous. This fluidity becomes essential in understanding how she viewed the island itself — not as a geographical space to be mapped out but as a mood to be experienced.
### Botanical Precision in Contrast to Abstracted Landscapes
Perhaps the most intriguing juxtaposition that Emily Nelligan offers in her work is found within her botanical studies. While her landscapes abstract the environment into tonal shadows, her ink drawings of plants like geraniums offer sharp contrast. A piece titled *Untitled* (1975) presents a highly rendered image of a plant with intricate leaf veins that resemble rivers or pathways themselves. Here, the specificity is striking. These botanicals are