The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Reed Fine Art Gallery presents the 2015 Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition, BFA 15: Selections from Senior Show, featuring selected works created by four graduating UMPI art students, through August 8. The public is invited to view the exhibition and attend a reception, being held in conjunction with the First Friday Art Walk, on Friday, July 3 from 5-7 p.m. in the Reed Gallery.
The Reed Fine Art Gallery has presented a Senior Thesis Exhibition each year for the last eight years as an opportunity for young and upcoming artists in northern Maine to showcase their work to the public and to provide a forum for them to discuss their art.
Artists in this year’s exhibition include: Jessalyn Levesque, Dylan Markie, Renee Royal, and Chelsea Searles. The works featured were selected from individual shows held by each artist during the Spring 2015 semester as part of the Fine Art Senior Thesis Exhibition course. Students in the course are required to prepare a body of work for solo exhibition, and defend it orally and in writing, in order to graduate.
Work from Dylan Markie’s show “Anxious for Peace” will be on display. Markie is a Christian artist who prefers working with scrap materials that he finds. He considers himself to be a combination of both a fine and folk artist. In this body of work, he focused on the spiritual peace that God can provide using his struggles with stress and his journey to find peace as a personal testimony.
Chelsea Searles focused on different aspects of life and death, as well as near-death experiences, in her show “Death Blooms.” Her work features the use of skulls (death), flowers (life), and various patterns, akin to the patterns faced in life daily. Through this, Searles attempted to find the true connections between life and death, and illustrate to her viewers that both can be a pleasurable experience. Searles is a mixed media artist who grew up in Van Buren.
Paintings from Renee Royal’s show “Elsewhere” will be on display. Royal is a painter whose chosen medium is acrylic paint. Her highly colorful body of work explores the hopefulness that daydreams and memories can bring to an individual.
Jessalyn Levesque focused on the relationship between plaster gauze and silk in her show “Ipseity.” The main focus of her work was on the development of identity, loss of identity, and reconstruction of identity through the investigation of loss and attachment in the familial unit. Levesque is a mixed media artist who works in multiple mediums.
The 2015 Senior Thesis Exhibition gives visitors the opportunity to view some of the cutting edge work at the University in the last year. The exhibition will also be featured during the First Friday Art Walk on Aug. 7 from 5-7 p.m. Both the July 3 and Aug. 7 receptions are free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
The Reed Fine Art Gallery is open Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The gallery is closed Sundays and university holidays. For more information about this event, please contact Heather Sincavage at 768-9442, or heather.sincavage@maine.edu.