UNE Gallery-Photography in Maine…
I swear the art gallery at Univ. of New England is Maine’s best kept art world secret. Unfortunately, it is tucked away out of sight, just as if it wants to hide, but do not read a gallery by its location. Drive into the campus on Stevens Avenue and keep going. Nope, keep going further. And there it will be – a square, two story building at the very, very end of the road.
If you enjoy art, make a point of signing up for their e-marketing notices of upcoming exhibits. Every one I’ve attended there has been worth the effort and the gallery is a very unique space – two floors (and a lower level room as well) of gorgeous light that show off everything installed to its best possible advantage. Plus… it’s free admission. Consider becoming a member.
PHOTOGRAPHY IN MAINE: NEW WORK is the exhibit there now (through June 7) and it’s just a beautifully done exhibit in every way. (Disclosure: two VoxPhotographs artists, Stacey Cramp and David Brooks Stess are included) Curator Steve Halpert worked with twelve well-known fine art photographers to select cohesive bodies of work from each, and the installation of all those photographs is expertly done.
The photographs are from everywhere and each artist’s work is really different from any other work in the exhibit. Tanja Alexia Hollander was represented by several contemporary images and I saw as well, for the first time, three images that she shot ten years ago as part of her “Windows” series. Her black and red 20″x20″ image titled “When Morgan was Sleeping, Barcelona, Spain, 1999″ is a picture I would very much like to own and it hasn’t lost its power for me with time or distance.
©Tanja Alexia Hollander
Jon Edwards is well represented by his haunting black and white photographs of octogenarian John Ryan. Both Edwards and David Brooks Stess have an deeply genuine empathy for their subjects – you can’t fake this stuff.
Praying to the Pie Gods © Jon Edwards
They are both willing to invest years spending time getting to know their subjects (Edwards with 5 years working alongside Ryan, and Stess with twenty years raking blueberries in Washington County). The results for both photographers are extensive, gorgeous bodies of work. All of their images are selenium toned silver gelatin prints.
Rose Marasco is debuting a fantastic series of images at this show – INTERIORS, which is part of a larger “Projections” series. The “Projections” series includes the mixed use of many different photographic media – from cyanotype to 4″x5″ color. The INTERIORS images are archival digital prints that are very large and presented in a very interesting way. Exciting, inspiring and visionary, the entire group.
INTERIOR series 00 (Proejctions) © Rose Marasco
Also featured in the exhibit are Jim Daniels, Yuri Marder, Stuart Nudelman, Victor Romanyshyn, Mason Philip Smith, Jan Pieter van Voorst van Beest and Fran Vita-Taylor. What a treat to stand in that great space and soak up such terrific images. If I’m gushing, I don’t care. I’m impressed.
