‘Hidden Stories’ at the University of Southern Maine, 

“Hidden Stories” runs Jan. 19 to Feb. 18 at the University of Southern Maine, featuring work by artists Kate Cheney Chappell and Annie Lee-Zimerele that spans book arts and other primarily 2D mixed-media.

An opening reception was held Jan. 26.

The ephemeral nature of drawings, prints and printed books, objects critical to the dissemination of knowledge, are directly tied to central themes of this exhibition, those of identity and loss. The colorful and engaging artworks speak to resilience when faced with impermanence and hardship. A text attributed to eighth-century Chinese calligrapher Li Yang-ping refers to “generative paper,” an early source that indicates the full range of pictorial capabilities made possible by the support. Employing paper in concert with paint, crayon and found materials, Cheney Chappell and Lee-Zimerle convey ephemerality through form and medium.

In Cheney Chappell’s accordion book “Keys to a Home No More,” consisting of monotype, copper leaf, collage, and found material with waxed linen thread, the artist refers to a poem written by Aphrodite Vati Mariola, who aided refugees of war fleeing to Europe across the Aegean Sea in 2015. A family, leaving their keys behind, remarked that they no longer needed them. Drawn from the unique profile of house keys contributed by members of the Peregrine Press, the book’s materials and format evoke a sense of tumult through impressions of that which is no longer there. Viewers can both directly perceive the emotion of the dark seascape and see through the silhouette of the keys themselves. The scraps of life rafts on which refugees crossed the Aegean enclose the book, furthering the interplay of tangibility and loss.

In her pop-up book with watercolor and crayon on paper depicting the Mugunghwa (Rose of Sharon), the national flower of South Korea, Annie Lee-Zimerle further challenges our consideration of prints and book pages as two-dimensional and often monochromatic. The Mugunghwa springs from the fuchsia drawn profiles on the page, emphasizing the plant’s ability to regenerate itself in harsh conditions, even when damaged. The imagery speaks directly to the resilience of Asian women in the face of hate crimes experienced since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Through color, line and the interaction of positive and negative space, Cheney Chappell and Lee-Zimerle engage with the concepts of resilience and persistence through the malleable material of paper. When open, the books reveal the challenges of the human experience. When closed, the images depicted on the material are protected, reinforced by board, cloth, and thread, prompting us to consider that which we keep within. To reveal the contents, the books must be opened, a transition must be made, altering the viewer’s experience. The journey of the page parallels our own.

Establishing the Kate Cheney Chappell ’83 Center for Book Arts at the University of Southern Maine in 2008, Cheney Chappell has been an artist since childhood. Her education includes the Sarah Lawrence College program at the Sorbonne in Paris, the University of Southern Maine, and the Haystack School of Crafts on Deer Isle. Her artworks are held in the collections of the New York Public Library, The New Britain Museum of American Art, and the Portland Museum of Art, among others. Annie Lee-Zimerle, currently Assistant Professor & Program Director of the Kate Cheney Chappell Center for Book Arts, has served as artist in residence at Cleveland Institute of Art and at the Studios at MASS MoCA. Her artworks are held throughout national public and private collections including Dayton Metro Library in Dayton, Ohio, and the Harold Washington Public Library in Chicago.

— Alexa McCarthy, PhD, lecturer, art history, University of Southern Maine