“Ken Morgan: Audience” and “Robert Pollien: Paintings from Mount Desert Island,” through May at the Clark House Gallery in Bangor.

Life’s a circus for Ken Morgan. Well, it used to be, anyway.

The painter grew up under the big top, and the subjects of his abstract work often draw from that experience. The work in this show is a departure from his minimal black-and-white interpretations of the performers, however. Now he turns his focus from the ring to the audience, portraying it in a kaleidoscope of colors.

Don’t expect to see faces. The audience takes the form of thick paint dimpled with dozens of pressed-in circles. The canvases are alternately slick with acrylic and shimmering with holographic powder, neon-bright and glittery, like Andy Warhol dressed in Dorothy’s ruby slippers.

In the gallery space, the paintings become an audience of their own, with all eyes turned on the viewer. The sensation of being in the spotlight is dizzying and fun, like having your own circus, in miniature, and you’re the ringmaster.

Robert Pollien’s serene, atmospheric landscapes are a striking contrast. Seen from afar, they seem almost abstract in their stark, geometric composition, but up close, the deep grooves and striations in Mount Desert Island’s rough, ocean-battered shoreline come into focus. Unlike other coastal painters, the rocks, rather than the sea, become central to the paintings. Pollien paints outdoors, capturing a full day’s changing light on one canvas. The result is a hazy, warm illumination that crackles with energy. The paintings seem to glow from within, evoking the sublime quality in Maxfield Parrish’s illustrations.

With simple lines and luminous layers of paint, Pollien shows the shore as we see it, not frame by frame, but as one continuous, subtly changing, whole.

Art notes

. The Paris Hill Art Gallery has opened at the Winterport Winery. The small, pretty gallery features an ongoing show of work by Rachael Anderson, a young painter from Bangor. On canvas and small blocks of wood, Anderson creates beautiful landscapes and abstract, geometric work, united by her color sense and a great eye for design. Among the highlights are a group of windswept trees on a knoll, set against a deep-blue, lushly painted sky, and the diminutive wooden squares in the upstairs gallery that go together like very hip quilt squares. The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday. For more information, call 223-4500.

. The University of Maine Student Juried Exhibition is on view through May 10 at the university’s Museum of Art in Carnegie Hall on the Orono campus. Juror Genetta McLean of the Bates College Museum of Art selected the work, including sculpture, prints, photographs, digital prints, paintings and assemblage.

It’s an interesting mix of traditional and contemporary work that shows off the strengths of UM’s student artists.

. Speaking of UM art students, Danuta Muszynska, Kris Sader and Rebecca Krupke each have work featured in the 13th annual Maine Open Juried Art Show at the Winslow Public Library. The show, sponsored by the Waterville Area Art Society, runs through April 27.

Muszynska’s prints were also selected for inclusion in Artsbridge’s eighth annual national juried show in Parsville Mills, N.J., and the 74th annual juried exhibition of the Art Association of Harrisburg, Pa., which takes place May 18 through June 20.