JEFF BYE: FRAYED EDGES
Cove Street Gallery
Portland, Maine
covestreetarts.com
May 29–July 12, 2025
Cove Street Gallery is exhibiting the recent paintings of Jeff Bye (b. 1971), who is fascinated by gritty urban, industrial, and waterfront scenes. Blending soft-focus and abstracted passages with others that are sharp and detailed, he conjures a powerful sense of place that might even evoke, for some viewers, the sounds and smells he experienced on site. Particularly impressive are the patinas and textures Bye conveys by scraping away areas of paint and then reworking them.
Bye is especially fascinated by run-down or graffiti-covered buildings — from motels and mom-and-pop storefronts to abandoned theaters and factories. Some of the sites depicted are under threat of demolition, making Bye’s artistry a valuable form of documentation. Many are located in New York City, though this show also includes a group of works illustrating Portland’s waterfront.
Trained at the Rhode Island School of Design and New York Academy of Art, Bye resides in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
