BANGOR, Maine — Gallery owner and photographer Aquelido Manuel Rodrigues was born in Bangor, but only by a sort of accident.

His parents, including his Portuguese father who had been living in northern Maine while doing military service, were on their way from Presque Isle to New York when his mother went into labor.

In recent years, Rodrigues has a new-found passion for the city of his birth. He lives here now and recently opened an art gallery on Harlow Street.

“It hit me just this morning,” Rodrigues said Wednesday in between phone calls and visits from artists participating in his latest artistic effort, a downtown exhibition which celebrates Bangor’s 175th anniversary.

“I suddenly realized that the effect this is having on me is I’m suddenly feeling very proud of some things I didn’t realize were there before,” said Rodrigues, who is known as Rod. “It’s bringing out a sense of community. I realize that a lot of people are identifying with many things that are here, but things that I never saw. It’s going to be exciting.”

Rodrigues has spent the last two months organizing “Bangor, Brush with History,” for which around 75 artists from Fort Kent to Kennebunk and North Anson to Beals Island are contributing about 100 new works of art.

All of the work was done in the last month and meant to depict some piece of Bangor, from its architecture to its nature to its cultural institutions. In 2009 Bangor celebrated the 175th anniversary of the year it became a city.

“This is about Bangor’s history, and the people who live here,” Rodrigues said. “We are part of this history. It’s good art and beautiful work. People are getting involved and you can feel the energy when you speak to them about it.”

Many of the pieces were still in Rodrigues’ gallery By Design on Wednesday morning in preparation for transport and hanging to four downtown sites: Bangor City Hall, Bangor Public Library, Penobscot Theater, and Maine Discovery Museum. Rodrigues’ gallery will also have some artwork on display.

City Hall will be the site of a public opening from 5 to 9 tonight. In addition to the new art for “Bangor, Brush with History” on display, Rodrigues will show some older prints, photographs and paintings he has been gathering recently.

A portion of the proceeds from sales of the art will go to the Bangor Museum and Center for History, which helped some of the participating artists with access to images.

The work will be on display until April 15.

Downtown scenes of West Market Square and busy intersections were popular with artists, but others tried to get at downtown Bangor in different ways. One artist made a series of four paintings of the exterior wall of Saliba’s rug cleaners on May Street. Others painted the statues in Bangor’s pedestrian walkways. City Hall was the subject of another painting.

Still more artists went outside of the downtown area to paint or photograph well-known or prominent structures such as Stephen and Tabitha King’s home on West Broadway, the Bangor Waterworks building, the Thomas Hill Standpipe and the new Hollywood Slots building.

While many gallery exhibitions can take months or years to organize, Rodrigues put together “Bangor, Brush with History” in a matter of weeks. He had the idea earlier this year for a much smaller-scale show with just a few artists to celebrate the 175th anniversary, but in October when some of the artists had to pull out for vari-ous reasons, Rodrigues had to make a decision about continuing with the show.

His decision was to recommit to the idea of Bangor-centric artworks, despite the massive logistical challenges of organizing an exhibit in a matter of weeks.

One Monday in November he realized he had 50 artists committed to the show. Five days later, Rodrigues counted again, and came up with 63 artists.

“When I counted 50 I realized this thing had a life of its own,” he said. “When I was at 63 I thought, this thing is writing its own script. It’s Bangor’s 175th anniversary, we have 100 works of art and 75 artists. People seemed to jump at this and liked the idea of what I was doing.”

Some artists told Rodrigues the sense of urgency put on by time constraints was actually a good thing for them.

“They had a sense as if they were doing a commission, and they were all really focused on it and caught up in it,” Rodrigues said.

Rodrigues appeared a few weeks ago in front of the Bangor City Council and presented his exhibition plan.

“Of course the city was excited because it’s a chance to show a different side of the city, to have this great event here and it also aligns with the 175th birthday celebrations which are drawing to a close,” said Shirar Patterson, Bangor’s business and economic development officer. “We thought it was a great chance to participate, and it also really aligns with our move to focus on art and culture.”

Patterson said the city is donating some equipment and staff time to keep City Hall open late Thursday night and she has been helping Rodrigues promote the event, but no city funds have been dedicated to the exhibition.

Rodrigues found many of the participating artists through recommendations from artists he knew.

St. Albans painter Barbara Johnson brought in an old wood ironing board Wednesday morning, on which she used acrylic paint to depict a circa-1880s scene of ice skaters on a frozen Penobscot River. Johnson did all the work on Tuesday based on images from an old calendar the Bangor Museum and Center for History sent her.

Other than having done work for the Discovery Museum auction, Johnson has no connection to Bangor — she is familiar with the Queen City, however, after having lived in Machiasport for many years before a recent move to central Maine — but wanted to take part after Rodrigues contacted her a few weeks ago.

“I just figured, people need something useful, so that’s how I came up with doing mural painting on furniture,” she said. “I wanted to do a winter scene, and I like historical scenes and history.”

···

Locations for “Bangor, Brush with History”

Bangor City Hall, Art Gallery, 73 Harlow St., 992-4200

By Design, 20 Harlow St., 947-0077

Bangor Public Library, Tabitha & Stephen King Hall, 145 Harlow St., 947-8336

Penobscot Theatre, Art Gallery, 131 Main St., 947-6618

Maine Discovery Museum, Art Gallery, 74 Main St., 262-7200