UMaine to host two Maine-based artists as part of Print Residency program

The University of Maine Department of Art will host two Maine-based artists in February as part of its Print Residency program.

From Feb. 8–12, sculptor Anna Hepler and painter Meghan Brady will work in collaboration at UMaine.

The artists are scheduled to give informal presentations on their art and processes at 9 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Feb. 9, as well as 4:30 p.m. Feb. 10 in the Wyeth Family Studio Art Center Printmaking Studio, Stewart Commons, Room 163.

The Print Residency program invites professional printmakers, artists or master printers to work in the printmaking studio for a set period of time and contribute to academic print classes via lecture, demo, presentation or student engagement in print project and production.

Brady, who lives and works in Camden, has shown throughout the state, but most recently at ICON Contemporary Art in Brunswick and part of the Portland Museum of Art’s Maine Biennial this past fall. As an abstract painter and occasional printmaker, Brady works to find a combination of uneasiness and balance using her own language of bold shapes and restless compositions.

Brady graduated from Boston University with an MFA in painting and is working toward a show of new work at New York City’s Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, Inc.

Hepler has been based in Maine since 2002. She has exhibited at museums around the world, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo; the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin; and the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Massachusetts. She also has mounted solo exhibitions at New Mexico’s Roswell Museum of Art and Suyama Space in Seattle, as well as several Maine locations including the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Portland Museum of Art and University of Maine Museum of Art.

Hepler has lived for extended periods in the Netherlands, Cyprus, South Korea and Italy. She was a Henry Luce Foundation Fellow in Seoul from 1999–2000 and has received support from the Artist Resource Trust, the Roswell Artist in Residence Program and the Maine Arts Commission.

In her work, Hepler says she finds the thrill of creating and the excitement of training her mind and hands to manipulate unfamiliar materials.

The Department of Art’s Print Residency program is in its second year and typically hosts two to three artists per semester.

Bill Ronalds, a printmaker, artist and illustrator from Rockland, Maine, will visit March 21–25 as part of the program.

The informal Print Residency presentations are free and open to the public. Those interested in attending should contact Susan Groce at susan.groce@umit.maine.edu, as space is limited.