Brenton Hamilton, Little Mask Face, 2015, Multiple gum bichromate, Courtesy of the artist
Brenton Hamilton,
Little Mask Face, 2015,
Multiple gum bichromate,
Courtesy of the artist

The University of Maine Museum of Art, located at 40 Harlow Street in downtown Bangor, opens three new featured exhibitions in January. UMMA is open Tuesday-Saturday from 10 am – 5 pm and brings modern and contemporary art exhibitions to the region, presenting approximately 12 original exhibitions each year. UMMA’s winter exhibitions open to the public on January 13 and run through May 6, 2017. Admission to the Museum of Art is free in 2017 thanks to the generosity of Deighan Wealth Advisors.

BRENTON HAMILTON: 20 YEARS

January 13 – May 6, 2017

Maine-based photographer Brenton Hamilton employs unconventional approaches to photographic techniques and materials to achieve his layered, dreamlike visions. This exhibition surveys Hamilton’s long career creating images using 19th century handmade photographic processes.

Serving as inspirations for Hamilton’s compositions are his ongoing studies of cultural history, sciences, early medicine, minerals and oceanology. Often working with collage and using liquid photographic emulsions as paint, Hamilton pushes the traditional boundaries of photography, offering a fresh interpretation of the medium. A wide range of historic processes including cyanotype, black glass ambrotype, tintype and gum bichromate –as well as an astonishing hybrid of media –offer a bridge between the antique and the postmodern. The exhibition also includes 18th century sculpted heads and objects that provide a glimpse of the unique source material often depicted within the artist’s compositions.

Brenton Hamilton received his MFA in photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design and is the Chair of the Professional Certificate Program in Photography at the Maine Media Workshops.

Siobhan McBride, Bones, 2014, Gouache on paper on panel, Courtesy of the artist
Siobhan McBride,
Bones, 2014,
Gouache on paper on panel,
Courtesy of the artist

SIOBHAN MCBRIDE: FOUR HOUR FORTUNE COOKIE

January 13 – May 6, 2017

Siobhan McBride works primarily in gouache on paper to render places and scenes that are imbued with incongruities, memories, and psychological tension. McBride comments that the depicted scenes, “are tense with anticipation, or blushing in the aftermath of an unseen event.” They are “descriptions of awkward experiences, passages from books and film fragments, things caught in the corner of my eye, and an attempt to conjure slippery memories.”  

McBride creates works that are steeped in mystery–images that hover between the humorous and the eerie. Bold light amplifies an array of realistically rendered objects and environments, and in doing so accentuates the unsettling nature of things obscured within shadows. When viewed from a distance McBride’s constructed images crystalize, but while up-close the surface is a complex abstract accumulation of colored shapes. Siobhan McBride received her MFA in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jared Cowan, Untitled, 2001, Cast bronze with video, Courtesy of the artist, Photo credit: Mat Thorne
Jared Cowan,
Untitled, 2001,
Cast bronze with video,
Courtesy of the artist,
Photo credit: Mat Thorne

JARED COWAN: THE LIFE OF DAVID

January 13 – May 6, 2017

In The Life of David, Maine-based sculptor, video and installation artist Jared Cowan presents a new series of works that explore the monumental events in the life of Emilio David Mazzeo (1920-1997). In 1948 Mazzeo, a marathon cross-country runner, was the fourth American to cross the finish line of the Boston Marathon and a member of the United States Olympic Team at the Summer Olympic Games in London.

The cast bronze works, video components and interactive construction in this exhibition are inspired by the oral retelling of Mazzeo’s life through family and friends. Later in life, Mazzeo experienced a catastrophic loss of his legs. This life altering event is reflected in the bronze forms the artist has cast from the actual prosthetic legs of his subject. Through these glimpses of Emilio David Mazzeo’s life story, Cowan conveys a message of perseverance over tragedy. The artist suggests that the “folkloric acquisition of materials speaks to the legend building that occurs while passing on information, and marks an end point in the thematic gradient that spans past and present works.” Jared Cowan received his Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art in 2001 from the University of Maine.

For More Information please contact:
 Kathryn Jovanelli
207.561.3350
kathrynj@maine.edu
www.umma.umaine.edu