Lauren Luloff sailed back to the Seacoast with billowing bed sheets on thin masts of scrap wood.

She spent a week as artist-in-residence at Buoy Gallery in Kittery, Maine, the first time she’s returned to the area since leaving her hometown of Dover at age 10.

The now Brooklyn-based artist has come to prefer fabric, specifically bed sheets she finds at thrift stores, to paint on and to create sculptures and installations. These intimate but abandoned pieces of home are particularly well-suited for her installation at Buoy, which is on display through mid-October.

Luloff described her return as an “emotional journey” in which she had to confront the reality of her memories and the things she had forgotten.

She initially considered a series of smaller panels, a more discrete and personal way of expressing herself, but the large, empty gallery space and the expectations that followed her were hard not to fill. She ended up with a tall installation, running diagonally from the gallery entrance and dividing the room in two.

On one side, a translucent maroon sheet she acquired from Goodwill in Dover hangs roughly in the shape and color of her former house there. On the other side, it’s like being inside the house, decorated with art and artful rendition of a motherly figure.

This simplification, as endearing as it is, underestimates the overall and overwhelming vision that fills the gallery. It’s not only a site where a personal history has taken place; it’s also an event for all who see it.

There are also examples of Luloff’s more painterly pieces on the walls and in the corners of the gallery, further illustrating her eye for color and design. Few are actual paintings, as most are three-dimensional, site-specific sculptures made from sheets.

Luloff said she likes arranging sheets in the same way she might use paint on a canvas, with some representing brushstrokes and some bright blocks of color. But the process, like making a collage, is faster and easier for covering a vast space, she said. It lets her act intuitively, honestly and more directly.

Since Luloff is having a fling with sheer fabrics, the installation is enchanting with natural light during the day, or carefully arranged lighting shining through it at night. But color and patterns are also integral to the selection of sheets. She’s using fewer patterns than before, but the ones she uses to create a border or contrast add symbolism, such as farm houses and waves.

“These are all things I’m thinking about here in this sweet, coastal town,” she said. “Family history, friends in the past, all of the things about the homeland, what’s home.”

Form and texture come in the way of seemingly haphazardly constructed wooden frames and rabbit skin glue used to hold the fabric just so, in between the geometrical shapes. Lately, Luloff has formed bulbous, yet somehow feminine protrusions with the sheets, something she said began as a happy accident.

In addition to exhibiting her own work, Luloff teaches art to children. While some tend to draw shapes they’ve been taught or try to replicate characters they’ve seen, she says the exceptional ones feel free to trust themselves, and are an inspiration to her.

Buoy Gallery is at 2 Government St., Kittery, Maine.