New Exhibitions at University of Maine Museum of Art, April 17-June 18
Contact: Kathryn Jovanelli, 207.561.3350
High resolution digital images available upon request
BANGOR — The University of Maine Museum of Art will open three new exhiitions on April 17, part of a show that will run through June 18 at the downtown Bangor facility.
Vessels Absent: Installation by Aaron Stephan
April 17 – June 18, 2009
Maine-based artist Aaron Stephan has created a site-specific installation for the Museum of Art. In Vessels Absent, the artist offers a witty critique of one’s perception of art. He encourages individuals to question the relationship between the viewer and the art object within the context of a museum environment.
Stephan has created an assortment of large, freestanding wooden crates that take on the form of weighty oversized human figures. The wooden crates stored in the backrooms of museums are containers for transporting precious works of art, but in this installation, the crates themselves are the art. The eight foot tall sculptural works are arranged in the space as if they are observing art in the gallery. Each figure, constructed from low grade plywood and strapping material, appears to be contemplating the blank walls—heads cocked to the side and arms folded in contemplation. It seems as if the artist has cleverly turned the tables. Is the viewer in fact the subject in Stephan’s installation?
Stephan received his MFA from the Maine College of Art and has completed five public art commissions around the state. Stephan is represented by Whitney Artworks, Portland, ME.
Successive Approximations: Works by Carol Prusa
April 17 – June 18, 2009
Carol Prusa’s paintings are inspired by her on-going fascination with biology, alchemy, physics and botany. Highly finished elliptical and round birch panels serve as the supports for an expansive arena where the artist depicts images that resemble ambiguous microscopic cellular structures, flora and fungi, and cosmological symbols.
Prusa’s meticulously rendered drawings are created in silverpoint, a medium employed by Renaissance masters Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer. Instead of using graphite pencil the works are drawn with silver wire. The artist incorporates other materials into the compositions such as powdered sulfur, titanium white, graphite washes, and acrylic media. The exhibition features an installation of various-sized circular disks that are arranged on the gallery walls in a non-linear configuration. Also on display are several celestial domes that incorporate fiber optics and digital technologies that evoke the ethereal.
Prusa earned a BS in Medical Illustration from University of Illinois and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from Drake University. She is an Associate Professor of Painting at Florida Atlantic University.
Selected Works on Paper by Aaron Stephan
April 17 – June 18, 2009
Aaron Stephan exhibits a series of works on paper that attest to his preoccupation with process and perception. In several works, the artist has obsessively rendered iconic images from art history including paintings by Rembrandt and Caravaggio. Stephan has drawn 64 versions of Italian-Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina’s Portrait of a Man painted in 1475. The miniature drawings are dramatically scaled-down interpretations of the original painting that inspired the work. Each drawing is rendered in ink and contains subtle differences such as shifts in value, inaccuracies in details, and varying line quality. The tiny works record the challenges confronted by the artist throughout the painstaking repetitive task.
Other works in the exhibition include a map of the world created from the colored material used for grass in architectural models. The meticulous application of bright green powdered turf renders the textured silhouette of each continent.
Stephan’s works on paper are a visible manifestation of a deep commitment to exploring complex and often obsessive visual challenges, and of posing questions without necessarily offering the answer.
University of Maine Museum of Art
40 Harlow Street
Bangor, ME 04401
207.561.3350
www.umma.umaine.edu
Hours: Monday – Saturday 10 am – 5 pm
Admission: FREE for 2009, thanks to the generous support of Machias Savings Bank