Art Exhibition July 14 – October 7, 2006
Contact: Kathryn Jovanelli, 207.561.3352, kj@umit.maine.edu, www.umma.umaine.edu
(Digital images available)
BANGOR, Me. – The University of Maine Museum of Art is pleased to present two new exhibitions: Sam Cady: Reality and Reverie, and Jocelyn Lee: Youth.
Sam Cady: Reality and Reverie
Sam Cady’s large scale, shaped canvas paintings often blur the boundary between painted illusion and the three-dimensional world that we inhabit. Remarkably, often it is not until you walk up close to the large, cut-out compositions that you can be sure that you are looking at a two-dimensional flat surface and not a three-dimensional sculpture, or a painting with pieces of the real thing fastened to it, or even the object itself.
This trompe l’oeil (literally, fool the eye) is key to Cady’s realism, although in his hands this venerable technique serves as a playful means to an end rather than as a deliberate final product. In his shaped painting, “Ice Fishing Shanty, Moose Pond,” Cady has enhanced the effects of his trompe l’oeil painting by cutting it out in the shape of the fishing shack, thereby eliminating its context. Through careful jigsaw work, he fabricates the wooden framework of such a painting to mimic the outline of the object or scene. He frequently adopts this compositional device to depict such structures and landscapes as an aluminum utility shed, a pitched tent, a mobile home, a peapod dinghy, a tree or a rocky coastal island; or to dramatically crop excerpts of buildings, highway underpasses, bridges, or a backyard woodpile.
Many of his paintings of familiar Maine subjects encourage us to imaginatively climb right in. “Snow Covered Dock,” for example, invites our visual entry at the floor of the gallery and leads us up the long walkway, blanketed by snow. This tall canvas seems to transcend the two-dimensional universe to deliver us to another time and place; we can imagine the freezing air entering our noses and our anticipation of the unknown at the end of the dock.
In Sam Cady’s art it is we, the viewers, who occupy the artist’s places and structures. We are engaged; we study the paintings, ponder the subjects as though seeing them for the first time, and provide our own context. Cady’s work beckons us to become the contemplative observers. Sam Cady was born in Boothbay Harbor Maine in 1943. He received his BA from the University of New Hampshire in 1965 and his MFA from Indiana University in 1967. He is currently an instructor in the Master of Fine Arts Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
His numerous solo exhibitions include: Caldbeck Gallery, Rockland, ME; Fujii Gallery, Tokyo and Osaka; Hampshire College, Amherst, MA; Holly Solomon Gallery, New York; Howard Yezerski Gallery, Boston; Barbara Gilman Gallery, Miami Beach; Gwenda Jay Gallery, Chicago; Mary Ryan Gallery, New York; Capricorn Gallery, Bethesda, MD; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ; and Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA. His work can be found in the collections of Addison Gallery of American Art; Peabody-Essex Museum; DeCordova Museum & Dana Sculpture Park; and Orlando Museum of Art.
Jocelyn Lee: Youth
In Jocelyn Lee’s large, color photographs of young people, time has stopped in a manner that seems most apparent, the subjects locked forever in the transition to maturity. In one, a girl pauses at the edge of a diving board to look back suspiciously at the viewer. In another, two girls kneeling in a clearing appear to create an impromptu science experiment involving a dead beaver.
These are images that may inspire each of us to reflect upon our own youth; but while the captured moments may feel familiar, their essence is hard to describe. The viewer might be left wondering how a simple subject and process are capable of rendering objects that transcend a mere cataloging of person and place. The portraits conjure questions whose answers remain elusive. The figures never appear other-worldly, in fact they give the impression of being very rooted to their surroundings. Perhaps part of the mystery is the degree to which the figure and its context depend on each other. The photographs seem imbued with a meaning that we sense is significant, even though it’s troubling not to be able to quickly define what it is about these children that holds our interest.
The fascination of these portraits also resides in the simple pleasures of the visual experience: the immeasurable beauty of skin, of fabric, of differences, of uniqueness. We have the luxury of gazing upon an occasion that is without self-consciousness among the three parties: the subject, the photographer and the viewer.
Jocelyn Lee was born in Naples, Italy. She received her BA in philosophy and visual arts from Yale University, and her MFA in photography from Hunter College. In 2001 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1996 her work, The Youngest Parents, was published by DoubleTake Books and The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in collaboration with Robert Coles and John Moses. In 2003, in conjunction with her exhibition at the Bernard Toale Gallery, she received an award for The Best Emerging Artist Exhibition in New England, from the International Association of Art Critics/USA. She has exhibited nationally, most recently at Pace MacGill Gallery, New York, NY, Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA; Bates College Museum of Art, Augusta, ME; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME; Jackson Fine, Atlanta, GA; LFL Gallery in New York; Portland Museum of Art in Portland, ME; and the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University.
Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University; and in Maine, the collections of Colby College Museum of Art; Bates College Museum of Art; and the Farnsworth Art Museum. Her work has appeared in many national publications including The New York Times Magazine, DoubleTake and Harpers. Lee is currently a faculty member at Princeton University.
Museum of Art
Hours: Monday – Saturday 9 am – 5 pm.
Admission: $3.00 per person.
No charge for Museum Members and UM students with Maine Card.
Directions:
From the North
I-95, Exit 185 (formerly 48) – Broadway, (Bangor, Brewer.)
Turn left at light onto Broadway, Rt. 15
At the 4th light (1.2 m), turn right onto State St., Rt. 2
At the light at the bottom of the hill (.1 m), turn right on to Harlow Street (a one-way street)
Merge into left lane, turn left into parking lot of Norumbega Hall.
From the South
I-95, Exit 185 (formerly 48) – Broadway, (Bangor, Brewer)
Turn left at light on to Broadway, Rt. 15
At the 3rd light (1.1 mi), turn right onto State St., Rt. 2
At the light at the bottom of the hill (.1 mi), turn right onto Harlow Street (a one-way street)
Merge into left lane, turn left into parking lot of Norumbega Hall.