in/Visible, Rural Queer Portraits
in/Visible is a project of mixed-media photographic portraiture and community engagement events. With Research and Development funds to support the creation of a new body of work, the grantee aims to work towards an exhibition, workshops, and a Pride Aroostook-sponsored farm-to-table potluck in a community space in downtown Presque Isle.
The goal of the project is to create a temporary physical space that celebrates the extended queer community of northern Maine. The title refers to the wide range of ways that queer people choose to exist in remote rural places. The project embraces the concept of body sovereignty, which means that expressing our individual identities is something that each of us has control over in daily life and also in how we are represented within a project such as this one. Celebrating the diversity of LGBTQIA lives and utilizing art as a way of expressing care, this show aims to provide a temporary sanctuary that will live on in the memories of people who get to interact with the project. The gallery is a small space that has stairs leading up to the front and is wheelchair accessible from the back.
Artist bio:
Morgain Bailey (b.1970, she/they) is a European-American artist who lives on Wabanaki homelands in northern Maine and whose artwork is influenced by their lived experience as a queer person with both working class and revolutionary roots.
Their creative practice is inspired by actively noticing heightened visual experiences that inspire joy, encourage rest, invite contemplation and acknowledge the importance of witnessing the nuances of our seemingly mundane environments. This creative work serves as visual evidence, social metaphor and invitations to gentle contemplation. Looking at Morgain’s work opens up an opportunity to slow down, celebrate human and ecological resilience and to encourage thoughtful resistance to extractive economic and social engines.
Morgain teaches photography workshops that lean into empathy, make space for discomfort and inspire creative opportunity for the deepening of our myriad relationships through artistic practice. They have taught at the Los Angeles Center of Photography, the Houston Center for Photography, The Colorado Photographic Arts Center and the Kinship Photography Collective. Reach out if you would like to discuss hosting a workshop through your organization or collaborating on a project.
They are a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, have an ecotherapy certificate from the Pacifica Graduate Institute and are an exhibiting artist. Their work is held in private collections and a few of the places it has been seen include The Tacoma Art Museum, The University of California at Berkeley, The University of Maine at Farmington, The Humid in Athens, Georgia and at Artemis Gallery in Northeast Harbor, Maine.
Cover image: Morgain Bailey, Queer Portrait 8, pigment print on Arches Aquarelle Rag, 16x16 inches, 2023.