SOHNS oearth

The Sohns Gallery located inside The Rock & Art Shop in downtown Bangor recently exhibited a powerful show by local artist Kenny Cole, titled “The Shroud Cycle: O’ Earth.”

The show was on display from April 15 to June 2, with an opening reception on May 17.

Originally from Poughkeepsie, New York, Cole attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, graduating with a BFA in 1981. He developed an artistic career in the neo-expressionist art scene in New York City’s East Village in the late ’70s and early ’80s. As much of the scene consisted of artist organized shows in various nightclubs and alternative spaces, Cole’s work adopted an edgy, graphic, second-wave graffiti sensibility.

After moving to Maine in 1994, Cole became a member of the Union of Maine Visual Artists and was a board of directors of the Waterfall Arts nonprofit in Belfast for 10 years.

In response to American cultural and political shifts Cole’s art career took on an activist perspective, and Cole decided to commit himself to fully creating politically engaging art. In his artist statement, he says, “Much of my work has since gained an activist perspective in order to begin identifying and defining emerging moral calculi and has lead me to explore more specifically; language, graphic or cartoon-like imagery, a schematic color palette, interactive canvas structures and silk-screen printing.”

His current work explores the United States’s military economy and the current shift from a draft imposed military to a volunteer military.