The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Reed Fine Art Gallery will present “Navigation Lights” by Portland artist Carrie Scanga from Jan. 27 through March 8. The public is invited to view the free exhibition throughout the show’s run and attend the opening reception on Friday, Feb. 7, from 5-7 p.m., which is being held in conjunction with the Presque Isle First Friday Art Walk.
Scanga is a printmaker and installation artist. She has been featured in over 50 solo and group exhibitions and has received critical recognition in The New York Times and The Boston Globe. She has exhibited in locations from Portland to Quito, Ecuador; Philadelphia to Chico, Calif.
Scanga is revered for her experimentation within the discipline of printmaking. Her exhibition, “Navigation Lights,” is a new series of etchings that are dark and loosely drawn, using marine beacons and nighttime at the fair as subject matter.
Scanga remarked, “They are meant to appear very ‘touched,’ because I drew them with powdered photocopy toner that I pushed around with my fingers and blew through a straw all over the plate before etching.”
“Our Fine Art program at UMPI relishes pushing limits and experimentation,” Reed Director Heather Sincavage said. “Scanga is the epitome of how a strong foundation of technique allows for sound and directed experimentation. The result is atmospheric, moody and chock full of memory. The viewer does not have to be Scanga to recall summer nights at the fair.”
Scanga attended Bryn Mawr College and the San Francisco Art Institute as an undergraduate and earned her MFA degree from University of Washington in Seattle in 2001. Her current projects include a book arts collaboration with Maine artist Rebecca Goodale, her traveling solo exhibition and performance work, Breathe: The Emergent Colony, and ongoing explorations in printmaking.
She is currently an assistant professor of printmaking at Bowdoin College. For more information about her current projects, see her website: www.carriescanga.com.
Scanga will be present for an artist’s talk at 5:30 p.m., the night of the reception. Light refreshments will be served.
The Reed Fine Art Gallery is open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The gallery is closed Sundays and university holidays. For more information about this event, call Sincavage at 768-9442 or email heather.sincavage @umpi.edu.
