Graduating Art students at the University of Maine at Augusta are exhibiting their works in an all-online Virtual Senior Thesis Exhibition on view at Danforth.UMA.edu. The virtual exhibition will be followed by a bricks-and-mortar exhibition in the Charles Danforth Gallery set to open Sunday, Sept. 6. The five artists, Marcea Crawford, Shana Rowe Jackson, Evan Lord Martin, Jenn Messier, and Becky Pass have spent months preparing their thesis projects, first in UMA’s studios, and then in their home studios as campus access was limited due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Becky Pass, “Cutting it Down,” 42″ x 60,” Acrylic, marker, ink, charcoal, and pastels on linen Submitted photo
Shana Rowe Jackson, “Gaining Perspective,” 10” round canvas, Acrylic on canvas SYSTEM
Encompassing a wide variety of media, formats, and scales, the works included in this year’s exhibition are, as artist Becky Pass explains, “built on endurance.” Pass, whose mixed-media paintings on linen bath blankets convey her experiences of the daily struggles with anxiety, depression, and PTSD in her works, says the colorful blankets “represent the disorder and chaos [she] experienced, while shape and line bring balance to these compositions, restoring […] a semblance of order.” Marcea Crawford’s five eight-foot large wheat-paste murals powerfully reflect Crawford’s experiences with domestic abuse and her survival. Jenn Messier’s works frame “surrealistic domestic scenarios” wrought from the disconnect between the slick perfection of fashion magazines and the more complicated and uncomfortable realities that transitions, from childhood to adulthood to parenthood, can bring. Evan Lord Martin has a sensory processing disorder that can render the world “a fury of mental and somatic noise;” his video works seek “to articulate unrefined states of mind without using words in a traditional way.” Lastly, Shana Rowe Jackson’s series of realistically-rendered skies frame an idealized plane high and perfect above the challenges below. “Through creating, I have been able to move past the negativity in my life,” Jackson writes, “I create the world that I want to see.”
Follow Danforth Gallery on https://www.facebook.com/umadanforth/, @UMADanforth on Instagram, or by visiting our website at danforth.uma.edu to stay current with events related to this exhibition and others.
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