A Semblance of Resemblance: Art and the Nature of Image
Contact: Krista Molnar Smith at the UMaine Dept. of Art: 207-581-3245
Lord Hall Gallery, University of Maine
June 18 – August 3, 2007
Opening reception – June 28 from 6 – 8 p.m.
Gallery hours 9 a.m. -4 p.m., M-F
A Semblance of Resemblance
brings together the work of three Maine artists, Andrew Hurtt, Owen Smith and Alan Stubbs in a provocative new show that leads the viewer to come away with more questions than answers. But this is just the intent of the artists in the show. Questions such as, what is art?, how is art made?, what is art made from?, why is art important and how does it relate to other parts of life?, what is meaning and how is it “made”?, how do we understand what the artist is saying?, and what is the role of the viewer in the interpretation of the artwork?
What is interesting about the selection of these three artists is that even though they ask many of the same questions they are in no way uniform in their approach or interests. Andy Hurtt has included some 20 digital photographic prints that are from a series in which he seeks to explore the basis of images and how we create or assign meaning. These large colorful images are layered with semi-translucent words playing with the nature of the visual and the verbal as they “hide” and “reveal” the potential meanings of what we see. Alan Stubbs, a perceptual psychologist by training, has 10 photographic images that play with our senses. Our disquieted familiarly acts to draw the viewer in, wondering what it is that we are looking at, something that we recognize, but can’t really make out. The images seem abstract, but simultaneously photographically real and we are left to question what it is that we are perceiving. The third artist in the exhibition, Owen Smith, is represented by a wide variety of media types – painting, sculpture, digital print, video and net art. Although his work seems at first to be so widely varied in media it might be hard to understand, what is key is that it is ultimately not the media that is central but how the media is used to ask questions about art and art making. Ultimately the art is united by it’s ideas and the questions it asks rather than by the media in which it is made. So the specific media utilized in the work is not just a given based on the artist’s habitual choice of materials, but is central to the meaning Smith is exploring and thus varies as he considers different ideas or topics.
The wide variety of work in the show offers multiple investigations initiated by the artists but left for us to ponder. A rich feast for the eye and mind, and a trip well worth taking to the Lord Hall Gallery on the University of Maine Campus. The exhibition is open Monday through Friday 9-4 through August 3, 2007.