About Lilian

Portland, Maine

Statement

Simultaneously painterly and photographic, my photomontage works emerge from a deep love of quietness and a need for stillness. Shooting primarily on film, I manipulate and digitally collage these original photographs to create textural landscapes that hover between fiction and memory. I’m drawn to photography’s inherent realism — its tendency to capture everything in sharp detail — but I work against that instinct, pushing toward compositions that are suggestive and interpretive. Prioritizing mood over naturalism, I use a muted palette and subdued scenes to create a sense of visual and mental pause — an invitation to step away from distracting noise and into a quieter, more reflective space.

biography

Thorpe (b. 1991) is a photomontage artist based in Portland, Maine. After growing up in Brooksville, ME, she moved to Brooklyn, NY, where she received a B.F.A. in Photography from Pratt Institute (2014), followed by an M.S. in the History of Art and Design, also from Pratt (2017). In 2014 she spent one month in an artists’ residency at Gullkistan Center for Creativity, Laugarvatn, Iceland.

After 13 years in New York, Thorpe returned to Maine in 2022. Her work has been featured in publications including Surface Magazine, Art Maze Mag, and Maine Home + Design. Her photomontages can be found in private collections throughout the United States and globally. Besides her career as an artist, Thorpe served as Assistant Director at Nancy Margolis Gallery from 2017, and in 2022 became the Gallery’s owner and director.