MMPA Gallery presents ‘Figurative: The Body as Language’

“Figurative: The Body as Language” runs Aug. 2 to Sept. 28 at The Maine Museum of Photographic Arts.

Artist talks and demos will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Aug. 23 featuring Amy Wilton, Andrew O’Brien and Kevin Callahan.

Kevin Callahan is a seasoned museum preparator and art mover with extensive experience working in various prominent institutions throughout Maine, including the Colby College Museum, Bates College Museum, The Maine Museum of Photographic Arts, the Osher Mapping Library, and the Maine Arts Commission. At the artist talk, he will share his expertise by demonstrating the technique of creating and using linen hinges. This method is essential for floating artwork in frames, allowing for a visually appealing presentation while ensuring the pieces are safely secured and preserved for photography and display.

Amy Wilton shows a body of work that is a visual chronicle of the life of her two children, Emma and Nigel, and their friends. “I am capturing transitions, flash moments of life’s absurd, uncanny relentlessness,” she says. “In each image, I find my best and worst traits reflected back at me through their attitude and gestures. I invite viewers to jump into the cacophony, as they create their own narratives around each photograph.”

A Portland resident, Wilton is a fine art and commercial photographer. After moving to Camden in 1997, she received her MFA in photography from Maine Media College. Her photographs have been exhibited most recently FotoNostrum gallery in Barcelona.

In Andrew O’Brien’s current series, “My American Friend,” “I am exploring the residual elements of portrait images in which the subject and all identifying elements have been abstracted or removed,” he says. “My work explores the interplay of color and form, seeking to reveal those lingering and defining artifacts of an individual that persist in the absence of identifiable subject matter. My aim is to invite viewers to engage with the unnoticed and to find meaning in the remnants.”

O’Brien is a Maine-based artist specializing in lens-based arts and photography. His work primarily delves into abstraction and coloration, often challenging conventional perspectives and revealing what is seen beyond its apparent subject matter.

Susan Rosenberg Jones is another brilliant artist from MMPA’s current exhibition, “Figurative: The Body as Language.” On display is a book and prints created from this portfolio titled “Second Time Around.”

Rosenberg Jones is a portrait and documentary photographer based in New York City. In 2012, Rosenberg Jones, having been widowed, married her second husband, Joel. She began shooting in her own home, and Joel was a willing subject. From this practice, Susan’s body of work, titled “Second Time Around,” emerged. Rosenberg Jones explores her feelings about growing older, family and community connections, through photography.

“After having been married for 32 years my husband passed away in 2008, after a long illness,” she says. “Once widowed, I experienced the confusing and mixed feelings of grief: guilt, loneliness, regrets, indelible memories of loving glances, hugs, and laughs. In 2009 I decided to try online dating because I wanted to meet a man for an occasional movie or dinner date. The second man I met online was Joel, and we felt a bond right away. Soon after, I closed my account on JDate. We married in January of 2012 in a lovely ceremony at home. I hadn’t expected to fall in love, but I did. To my surprise and delight, I found that I could deeply love this wonderful man who entered my life, while holding dear the memories of my first husband. Having been in a long-term marriage, I came to this new relationship with the tools in place to be a good wife. We quickly fell into the routine and ease of being a stable married couple, except that we were newlyweds in our 60s. There is humor in that. For one thing, our bodies are not supple and streamlined the way they were when we were young. We both come with a lot of baggage, and at our ages, it’s no big deal, nothing to get excited about. We’ve both seen a lot, done a lot, and have higher thresholds for idiosyncratic behavior than in our 20s and 30s.”

The Maine Museum of Photographic Arts is at 15 Middle St., A3, Portland. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday and by appointment on Wednesdays. See www.mainemuseumofphotographicarts.org for more information.