Campus Events and Media Releases

University of Maine at Farmington Art Gallery Exhibit Offers View of Consumerist Culture

FARMINGTON, ME (January 30, 2009)--The University of Maine at Farmington Art
Gallery will present the exhibit "Here to There" from Feb. 5--Mar. 8. The
gallery will host an opening reception for the artists from 5-7 p.m.,
Thursday, Feb. 5; and an artist's talk at 5 p.m., Friday, Feb. 6.

The exhibit will feature two separate yet subtly interconnected displays by
Philadelphia artists Dana Hanmer and Travis Hanmer. Both artists are
masterful in creating intelligently crafted objects that invite the viewer
to consider the contradictions underlying contemporary consumerist culture.

Dana Hanmer's "Complex" is both formally intricate and metaphorically rich.
It employs disposable materials in the construction of fairy tale
landscapes that transcend the throw-away elements from which they are
constructed. Bubble gum, artificial snow, fast food wrappers--all are
transformed into metaphorical dwellings, embodying the ways in which
consumption is poeticized in contemporary culture. The natural
deterioration of these materials over time requires constant replacement
and repair, suggesting a sense of history and transformation that mirror a
society in flux.

Travis Hanmer's iGEAR series is an ongoing multi-media project in which the
artist explores the intriguing notion of isolation as a social event.
Masquerading as an actual consumer product, Hanmer's "iGEAR Personal
Isolation Equipment" combines the contemporary consumer culture's need for
personal expression with the Modernist concept of isolation. The elements
of fashion, graphic design and sport are used to explore the way the
concept of social isolation has itself become commercialized.

Dana Hanmer has a BFA from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University
and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She works in sculpture and video
and has taught at Moore College of Art and Design and the Fairmont Center
in Philadelphia. Travis Hanmer has a BFA from the Art Institute of Boston
at Lesley University. He has exhibited throughout the country, including at
the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport; the SPECTOR Gallery in
Philadelphia, Penn.; and the Art Interactive Gallery in Cambridge, Mass.

These UMF gallery events are free and open to the public. The UMF Art
Gallery, located on campus at 246 Main St., Farmington, is open weekly from
noon--4 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.

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For more information, please contact Elizabeth Olbert, director of the UMF
Art Gallery at 207-780-5460, or elizabeth.olbert@maine.edu.


EDITOR'S NOTE: You will find photo at
http://www.umf.maine.edu/campus/docs/RP089-030.jpg

Photo Credit: Submitted photo
Photo Caption: Philadelphia artist Dana Hanmer's work "Complex" is featured
at University of Maine at Farmington Art Gallery exhibit Feb. 5--Mar. 8.