Suzette McAvoy is feeling hopeful about the fall, fingers crossed.

Visitation is picking up at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, and the 2020 Biennial, scheduled to open Oct. 3 and featuring a slew of work by young and largely undiscovered artists, should provide art lovers with the incentive to plan an outing to the midcoast venue. For McAvoy, the biennial also marks her farewell. She is retiring this fall after 10 years as director at CMCA and 32 years in the Maine art field. She came to Maine for a curator’s position at the Farnsworth Art Museum.

“When I arrived in Maine in the fall of 1988, I never expected to spend, really, my entire career working in the Maine art community. People have often asked me, ‘Don’t you find it limited?’ In fact, it’s the opposite of that. It’s a constant revelation of who is here and new artists all the time that I am discovering or being introduced to,” she said. “I am constantly renewing my sense of excitement over the depth and breadth and quality of the art community in this state.”

Nowhere is that sense of excitement, wonder and discovery more evident than during the biennial. This year’s biennial is a big one. With the decision of the Portland Museum of Art to change its biennial to an international triennial, the CMCA exhibition offers the best chance for young and emerging artists to present themselves and their work. Plus, there’s a general sense of anticipation, McAvoy said. The pandemic has forced people to change their routines and act with caution, but people are eager to see art in person. “It’s not difficult for us to make a safe environment here at CMCA. We’re all on one floor with an open-floor plan. There are no stairwells, no elevators, no contact points,” she said.

As for the exhibition itself, it’s too soon to say if a theme will emerge, other than, generally, people will see a lot of art that addresses political and environmental turmoil. The deadline for submissions was April 1, just after the pandemic hit, and McAvoy believes a few artists will deal with the coronavirus in their work. There will be a lot of paintings in the exhibition and less art that relies on technology than in the recent past.

The biennial will include 34 artists representing 17 Maine communities. Eight are graduates of Maine College of Art, and three are graduates of Bowdoin College. There are 19 artists from the Portland area. Eighteen are men, 15 are women and one is non-binary.

And there is one retiring director.

“I can say for myself, being involved with the biennial in the final months of my position here is a high point in terms of being able to showcase the work of living contemporary Maine artists in this world-class venue. That was always my goal and my vision, knowing the really high quality of work created by artists connected to Maine and giving them a platform where that work can be showcased and shared with the world,” McAvoy said.

CMCA Biennial, opening Oct. 3, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, 21 Winter St., Rockland; cmcanow.org

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The artists and their towns:

Jeffrey Ackerman, Morrill; Henry Austin, Portland; Susan Beallor-Snyder, Southwest Harbor; Fanny Brodar, Kennebunkport; Anne Buckwalter, Portland and Philadelphia; Penn Chan, Portland; Ben DeHaan, Portland; Brian Doody, Portland; Jenny McGee Dougherty, South Portland; Norajean Ferris, Portland, and Donna Festa, Bangor.

Others include Sam Finkelstein, Rockland; Kevin Ford, Portland and Norwalk, Connecticut; Elyse Noelani Grams, Portland; Meg Hahn, Portland; Breehan James, Scarborough; Tom Jessen, Temple; Baxter Koziol, Portland; Mandy Lamb, Norridgewock; Phil Lonergan, Portland, and Campton, New Hampshire; Hector Nevarez Magaña, Portland; Ashley Normal, York and Nashua, New Hampshire, and Isabelle Maschal O’Donnell, Portland.

Also chosen were Elijah Ober, South Portland; Aaron Rosenblum, Northport and Louisville, Kentucky; Nicholas J Sevigney, Wells and Holderness, New Hampshire; Susan L. Smith, Dover-Foxcroft; Maia Snow, Portland and Austin, Texas; Benjamin Spalding, Portland; Richard Van Buren, Perry; Jimmy Viera, Portland; Susan B. Webster, Deer Isle; and Erin Woodbrey, Sebago Lake and Orleans, Massachusetts.

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