The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Reed Art Gallery will present Folk Mined: Musical Installations by Carol Ayoob, from Oct. 29, 2018 through Jan. 18, 2019. The public is invited to view the exhibition throughout the show’s run and attend the Gallery Reception on Friday, Nov. 2, from 5-7 p.m., which includes a talk with the artist at 5:30 p.m.; light refreshments will be served. This reception is being held in conjunction with the First Friday Art Walk. The Reed Gallery is located on the second floor of the University’s Center for Innovative Learning.
Ayoob, who has worked for more than 30 years as a practicing artist, musician, and community organizer, resides in Castle Hill and serves as an Art instructor at UMPI, teaching classes in photography, mixed media, and Experience of the Arts. She makes work that is both collaborative and performative based. Her installations are mixed media representations of elemental forms. She is interested in slow time, and slow action, and aims to draw attention to social injustice issues through her images, installations, and improvisiations. For her exhibit, Ayoob has “mined” wood, cloth, needle and thread, clay, dirt, songs and sounds to create unique installations.
“This exhibit is a harvest of the musical parts, things, sounds, words, images and time that I have come to know as a (Grand) Mother, a Partner, Gardener, Friend, and as a Musician and Artist,” Ayoob said in her artist’s statement. “These works speak of an elementary reduction of form, texture, line, and space, and as a performance, of collaboration, improvisation, and relationship.”
She received her Master’s in Fine Art degree in Intermedia from the University of Maine in 2012. Her ongoing thesis is based on the question, “How can art play a role in the interface of farming and community identity.” Ayoob also serves as the Executive Director of the nonprofit Mainely Girls, housed at UMPI, which seeks to improve the lives of girls living in rural communities.
All are invited to view Ayoob’s show between October and January and to come out to the First Friday Art Walk on Nov. 2 and take part in the free reception and artist’s talk at 5:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be served. In addition, this show will be open during the First Friday Art Walk on Dec. 7 from 5-7 p.m. Please follow gallery happenings on the Reed Gallery Facebook page, www.facebook.com/ReedArtGallery.
The Reed Fine Art Gallery is located on the second floor of UMPI’s Center for Innovative Learning and is open Monday through Thursday from 7:30 a.m. -10 p.m., Friday from 7:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., and is closed Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, and when the University is closed. For more information about this event, please contact Reed Gallery Director Hyrum Benson at (207) 768-9441 or hyrum.benson@maine.edu.