Life Forms
Life Forms is an experiment in artistic community building, and a series of four exhibitions spanning four years. Participating artists all have strong ties with or are living in Maine. Works will be new, or very recently made, at the time of each exhibition, and must be sculpture, or pushing the boundaries of 3D work. The first three exhibitions will be group shows of four artists each and the final gathering will be a show of all twelve artists. We seek to deepen our relationships with each other and the Maine community over the course of this series.
Art making is a solitary experience, feeling even more so in these early post-covid times. We are 12 women sculptors coming together for mutual support, friendship, inspiration, skill building, potlucks and studio visits. We are also gathering to share our work and experiences with the Maine community through exhibitions, artist talks and participatory events. We can only dream right now of how we all might be changed by this undertaking, but already synergy is building and we feel uplifted and excited.
The artists for the first exhibition, Life Forms Grow, are Jackie Brown, Leah Gauthier, Ashley Page and Elaine K. Ng. Themes of our individual inquiries include, Climate change and interconnectivity, the vulnerability, grace, and complexities of the Black experience, physical and psychological structures of site, the potential of our material environment to hold meaning, and blurring of the real and imagined. Each of us are growing new ideas, bending expectations, and will be encouraging ourselves and our audiences to question assumptions and make new connections.
Collaborators: Jackie Brown, Elaine K. Ng, Ashley Page
Artist bio(s):
Jackie Brown makes biomorphic sculptures and installations that blur boundaries between the real and the imagined. Brown received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and her BA from Hamilton College. She teaches at Bowdoin College.
Leah Gauthier makes wild inspired embroidered paintings, living sculpture, and often edible community works exploring food as an agent of social change. Leah received M.F.A from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and her B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Elaine K. Ng is an artist who utilizes material investigation and process-based practices to explore our relationships to place. She holds a BA from the University of California, Davis, an MBA/MA from Southern Methodist University, and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Ashley Page holds a BFA in Sculpture and a minor in Public Engagement from Maine College of Art & Design. In her work, she explores the vulnerability, grace, and complexities of the Black experience, as she uses her practice as a vessel for representation and visibility. These vessel forms are often a metaphor for the body, a vessel for a spirit, or act as a container for ephemera. With these vessels, she considers the universal cultural context of a basket and their functional place in human history, while using them as the vehicle for memory, portraiture, and storytelling.
Cover image: Jackie Brown, Strata Series: Drift, 3D Printed Ceramic Sculpture, 5.5 x 7 x 7.5", 2022.