Artist Statement by Gabriella Koenig

After Bowdoin announced its move to remote learning, I decided that I wanted to create an artist book celebrating Maine to continue feeling connected to campus after an unanticipated end to my final semester. My goal for this project was to create an ode to my Bowdoin experience by capturing its surroundings, specifically the Maine coastline. I was drawn to this subject matter because of its anachronistic quality. There is an innate atmosphere of nostalgia around a working waterfront and the pastoral scenes of Maine that mimics my current state of wistfulness: both beautiful and somber. Furthermore, the lack of modernity in the Maine coastline evokes a sense of stasis that parallels the lethargy of quarantine.