ROCKLAND, ME.- The The Center for Maine Contemporary Art is presenting the groundbreaking exhibition, Linden Frederick: Night Stories, from August 19 through November 5, 2017. The exhibition, which pairs fifteen newly created paintings by the noted realist painter with fifteen new works of fiction by some of America’s most acclaimed writers, premiered as part of CMCA’s Summer Gala on the evening of Friday, August 18, 2017.

The exhibition, Night Stories, and the accompanying book have been eight years in the making. When artist Linden Frederick (b. 1953) realized a growing number of his collectors were novelists and screenwriters, he wondered what would happen if the writer-illustrator relationship were reversed: the painting first, then the writing. The result is Night Stories. Fifteen celebrated American fiction writers each agreed to select one painting especially created by Frederick as inspiration and then, over the following months, write a unique story inspired by it.

In Night Stories, Linden Frederick's paintings are nocturnal visions of rural and small-town America, and imbued with a rich sense of mystery, both "ominous and sublime" (Maine Home & Design). Frederick's signature style has drawn comparisons to that of Edward Hopper; except in Frederick's work a human presence is only suggested.

"From concept to initiation, this project has been seven years in the making," says Linden Frederick. "My paintings have a strong narrative element. The growing number of authors, screenwriters, and playwrights collecting my work, and the resulting conversations with them as to why they are connecting so strongly to it as storytellers, made me decide an exhibit defining and honoring that connection could broaden the traditional art viewing experience and provide a cross-cultural entry point for a wider audience."

Glitterati Arts will publish Night Stories, a book of paintings included in the exhibition together with the short fiction inspired by them, hitting stores in October 2017.

Linden Frederick grew up in Upstate New York and studied art at Ontario College of Art in Toronto and the Academia de Belle Arte, Florence, Italy. Since moving to midcoast Maine in 1989, Linden Frederick has been included in exhibitions at the Farnsworth, Ogunquit and Portland museums of art in Maine and in gallery exhibitions in Maine, New York, Texas, New Mexico, South Carolina and Pennsylvania. Most recently, work by Linden Frederick was exhibited at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA. A Forum Gallery artist since 2004, Linden Frederick has been the subject of four one-person Forum Gallery exhibitions. His work has been acquired by public collections throughout the United States, and by private collectors from the literary, film and finance communities, among others.