Press Release

As an artist, Maury Colton is a hidden gem, seemingly plucked from Willard Beach in South Portland, where he grew up and which shaped the foundational experiences that continue to influence his work today. A native of Maine and a master of contemporary art, Maury’s paintings are trompe l’oeils and meditative illusions arranged in abstract patterns, inspired by Maine’s natural landscapes, tidal pools, and granite beaches. Drawing from the years he spent living in New York City during the 80s and 90s, one can also see reflections of cracked pavements, shattered glass, and crumbling structures. “I am looking for a universal force underneath everything. And so I see that in the fracture.” Maury noted in a recent interview with his friend and contemporary, Katherine Bradford, an artist from Maine as well, “fractures and rocks and even tumbledown buildings, whatever they are, there’s a universality about that.”

During Maury Colton’s July 2025 show “Variations,” Chris Crosman described his works as containing “microcosms and macrocosms, from amoebic to the galactic, as microscope slides of organic single-cell creatures from the primeval ooze to the Pillars of Hercules seen through the Hubble telescopes.” Maury’s abstractions play with the intersection of shape and color, at times appearing as transparent as a stained-glass window and, with others, like opaque collages made from irregular strips of paper.  Presenting over 50 years of his work at Fort Hall Gallery in his retrospective show, Maury traces a lifetime of fascination with the fragmentation and convergence of line and form.

Maury Colton, raised in South Portland, ME, received his first training as an artist at the Portland School of Art. However, in 1969, he broke away from PSA with the establishment of The Concept School of Visual Studies, where he both studied and taught. In 1970, he was the first recipient of the Marguerite Zorach Scholarship at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Maury was also a founding member of the Union of Maine Visual Artists, alongside artists such as Don Voisine and Kathy Bradford. He later went on to study at the Royal College of Art in London, on the Sir Robin Darwin scholarship. Following his year in London, Maury lived and worked in New York City from 1981 to 1997. On his return to the U.S., he was also the recipient of the McDowall Fellowship. In 2025, his show “Variations” was on view at the Triangle Gallery in Rockland, ME, where Maury also maintains his studio.