Secrets of the Sea will open with a reception free and open to the public and cash bar from 5-7 p.m. The reception is concurrent with the Chamber Business After Hours and will feature gourmet delicacies of the sea including several made with seaweed from Ocean Approved, a kelp farm located in Casco Bay.

Highlights of the exhibit include Angler Fish, by the late Nathan Nicholls of Waldoboro, Maine. The 6-foot-long by 52-inch-high interpretation of an angler fish is welded with scrap metal including garden forks, rake tines, propane tank, bicycle seat, and pick heads.

Sea Horse is made with a snowmobile muffler, horse shoes, and other recognizable scrap metal items.

The exhibit includes several photographs by Adam P. Summers, biologist at the Comparative Vertebrate Biomechanics Lab at the University of Washington, accompanied by poems by Sierra Nelson. Summer uses marine specimens collected from fishing operations as the medium in an artistic project revealing the anatomical structure of sea creatures. The stained skeletal tissues are visible through the skin and flesh, exposing the biological innards as vibrantly colored matter. The photographs are not only mesmerizing on an aesthetic scale, but also give a rare glimpse of the underlying structure of the animal, visualizing their vertebrates, skeletons, and soft tissues.

“In a desire to understand detail, you focus on how things work. These things are qualities that good poets and good biologists share,” said Summers, who worked with poet Nelson to create poems for each image.

The exhibition features poetry from 14 writers in a chapbook titled “Poems For Tube-Snouts and Other Secrets of the Sea.”

The exhibit includes a 1-1/2 minute stop-motion video by the artist PES. In 2013, the artist was nominated for an Academy Award for his brilliant, but brief, stop-action animated videos. Works in the exhibit were inspired by marine plants such as bladderwrack, invertebrate species including sea urchins, barnacles, mollusks, sea slugs, octopus, horseshoe crabs, and vertebrates such as fish, seals, and whales.

The Atrium Art Gallery is at 51 Westminster St. Gallery hours are Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-8 p.m.; Friday, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.; closed holidays. For more information, call 207-753-6500.

Artists in the exhibition”

Anne Alexander

Chris Augusta

Thomas Berger

Holly Berry

Kate Cheney Chappell

Nicole Duennebier

Karen Gola

Rebecca Goodale

Sayuri Sasaki Hemann

Jamie Hogan

Ann Jenkins

Wendy Newcomb

Nathan Nicholls

Mary O’Malley

PES

Barbara Putnam

Richard Remsen

R. Keith Rendall

Adam P. Summers

Adelaide Tyrol

Jacques Vesery

Melanie West

Brian White

Poets

Dave Bonta

Elizabeth Bradfield

Robert Chute

Sarah DeWeerdt

Elizabeth Garber

Rachel Kessler

Carl Little

Cecilia Llompart

Dora Malech

Jane Nelson

Sierra Nelson

Stephen O’Connor

Michael Waters

Captain Paul Watson

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