Mainers are spoiled for choice when it comes to art galleries. We here in the mountains no less so than our swankier siblings in the toney coastal towns. Right now I’d like to draw our attention to an exciting show that has just opened in Kingfield, at Ulrike Stadler’s gallery.
The Stadler Gallery has been housed in Ulrike’s immense barn since 2001, where she has made a commitment to providing artists in all stages of their career a space to exhibit their work. During the summer months the gallery has rotating exhibitions from June through September.
Inhabiting the space now are the black-and-white photographs of Temple’s Jo Josephson, and the madly unpredictable canvases of Michael Branca from Bath. Those of us who were at Sunday’s reception were able to chat with the artists of the new show which runs through Aug. 6. That’s not such a long time away, so you should check your calendar and make your plans.
Jo is known to most of us around town as a journalist and photographer with an enormous social conscience. As adept at teaching as she is at reporting, Jo doesn’t hesitate to add commentary to her photographs, and to her credit her comments illuminate rather than distract.
That said, three of her images stand alone and speak for themselves, but their technique is curious and new: Jo has recently begun to experiment with transforming digital color photographs into digital black and white photos by printing them on Thai Unryu/Mulberry paper using an HP Laser Jet printer. “The result – the interaction between black and white digital images and and the fibers of the paper – intrigues me,” Jo says, and they intrigue the viewer as well.
“I work in black and white because I believe it’s where stark contrast, subtle shadows, strong lines, shape and texture rule,” Jo writes. “And where less is more. It’s also where the object of my focus is freed from the distraction of color…I guess you could say I prefer what I call the bare bones ‘honesty’ of working in black and white.”
Most of one wall in the smaller back-house gallery is given to her series of four portraits, with commentary alongside. These are of Mainers you might know, and Jo describes her involvement with them:
“The four portraits in this exhibit came into being after working 30 years as a journalist in Maine. During that time I had the fortune to meet, interview and then follow the work of Amy LeBlanc, Will Bonsall, CR Lawn and John Bunker. They are Mainers who are known nationally, if not internationally, for the work they are doing saving the genetic diversity of heritage/heirloom food crops that has all but disappeared from the catalogues of the corporate-dominated seed industry.
“No, they are not running seed banks. What they are doing is providing gardeners and small farmers with the opportunity to actively participate in conserving the germ plasm of those vanishing varieties by growing them in their gardens, fields and orchards, year after year. One could say the four are engaged in ‘participatory conservation.’”
If Jo’s photographs are inward-turning and contemplative, Michel Branca’s paintings explode through the immense space of the main gallery. His media and subject matter range from fantastical oils to plein air landscapes to conceptual assemblages, and wherever you look there is a through-line of whimsy and humor that joins everything together. Though you mustn’t think that his whimsy is in any way cutesy or infantile – it can disturb as well as delight, and it’s part of Michael’s talent that he can do both at the same time. He says that his work addresses feelings of (dis-) connectedness with nature, and attempts to find beauty, joy and humor in the unexpected and mundane.
Michael was born in Boston, and holds an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, a BA from Colby College, and has studied at Temple University Rome. He has been awarded fellowships at the Skowhegan School, Vermont Studio Center and Monhegan’s Carina House, and received a grant from the Maine Arts Commission. He teaches painting and drawing at Southern Maine Community College.
The founder of this feast, Ulrike Stadler has been an influence, a participant, and a leader in the international art world for her entire life. She was born in Germany, received a B.A. in art at the Klosterschule, Hamburg, and studied philosophy and medieval languages at the University of Hamburg.
In 1965, Ulrike emigrated to New York City, and 20 years later, in the early 1980s, she permanently moved to Maine. She has exhibited her work in New York and Maine for more than 30 years, and is in several prestigious collections.
For the 14 years of the Stadler Gallery in Kingfield, Ulrike has encouraged and exhibited an astonishing array of artists of all schools, styles and philosophies, and has always kept a piercing eye open for the unexpected, the thrilling, and the challenging. You may know that Ulrike has herself been challenged recently by serious health problems, so it was thrilling to see her at the reception, holding forth in charmingly regal fashion and commanding everyone’s affections.
The Stadler Gallery, on Main Street on the right just as you enter Kingfield, is open daily from noon to 4.
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