Pullen Gallery to feature
2013 Fine Art Senior Thesis Exhibition
PRESQUE ISLE — The University of Maine at Presque Isle Fine Art Program faculty members have announced the five solo exhibitions developed through the 2013 Fine Art Senior Thesis Exhibition course. The series of exhibitions will be hosted in the Pullen Art Gallery starting in March and continuing through May.
Photo courtesy of UMPI
SENIOR EXHIBIT — University of Maine at Presque Isle bachelor of fine art students are presenting their senior thesis exhibitions this spring as part of the program’s unique capstone experience. This piece, titled “Andy,” by Angel Cray, is one of the many student works that will be on display in the Pullen Art Gallery between March and May.
The Fine Art Senior Thesis Exhibition, a six-credit, academic-year-long course, is a capstone to the BFA program. The rigorous course of study is unique to most statewide BFA programs. The Senior Show allows enrolled students to have an experience similar to a graduate school environment. Students are required to prepare a body of work for the solo exhibition and defend it orally and in writing, in order to graduate.
The students featured this year are: Angel Cray, Robb Miller, Lanette Virtanen, Corey Levesque and Karrie Brawn.
Angel Cray will lead off the season with her photography pieces that are rich with experimentation. Her exhibition, titled “An Artist’s Dedication,” consists of a series of large prints photographed from a pinhole camera. Her images superimpose a portrait over an environmental image, all relating to her muse. The photographs are finished with a layer of wood stain and a wood-burned message completes the process. Cray’s works feature a self-developed process and are truly unique to her discipline. Her exhibit runs from March 28 to April 9. Her reception will be held Saturday, March 30, from 4-7 p.m. Cray’s exhibition will also be open during the April 5 First Friday Art Walk from 5-7 p.m.
Robb Miller captures the isolation in vast spaces. The landscape imagery evokes a sense of introspection and sometimes an emotional turbulence. Miller’s process, founded in experimental darkroom techniques, layers imagery with textures, such as rusted metal, that create the stark image. Miller’s exhibit, “Forgotten Landscape,” runs from April 18 to 24. His reception will be held on Friday, April 19, from 5-7 p.m.
Lanette Virtanen is a digital photographer, honoring the legacy of her family. Choosing to photograph her son’s trees that he planted at age 5, she documents the trees, now 20 years later, as they withstand the Canadian seasons. The changing seasons reflect the cycles of life in her family and document a precious place where their legacy was built. Virtanen’s exhibit runs from April 25 to May 1. No date and time has been set for her reception.
Corey Levesque is the first student in the history of UMPI’s fine art program to take on layered painting using epoxy resin and acrylic paint. Levesque’s work is seemingly cut from a place in time and archived as a luminescent jewel within a birch panel. His exhibit, “An Ephemeral World” engages the landscape and the memory tied to that place. Levesque’s exhibition runs May 2-8. His reception will be held on Friday, May 3, during the First Friday Art Walk from 6-8 p.m.
Karrie Brawn closes the season with her exhibit, “amour-proper,” consisting of acrylic paintings revolving around the duality of narcissism. Armed with a series of large self-portraits created through the strong influence of action painting, Brawn’s work dramatically draws from classic painters, such as Caravaggio, but involves a modern approach to composition for a contemporary dialogue. Brawn’s exhibition runs May 9-16. Her reception will be held on Friday, May 10, from 5-7 p.m.
Members of the campus and community are invited to view each show that will be on display this spring in the Pullen Art Gallery and attend all show receptions. For additional information, contact Heather Sincavage, UMPI assistant professor of fine art, at heather.sincavage@umpi.edu.
