Campus Events and Media Releases

UMF Art Gallery Celebrates Edgar Allan Poe Bicentennial with "After Poe: Works of Mystery and Imagination" Exhibit

FARMINGTON, ME (September 24, 2009)--University of Maine at Farmington is
pleased to present "After Poe: Works of Mystery and Imagination," a UMF Art
Gallery exhibit in celebration of the bicentennial of Edgar Allan Poe's
birth. Free and open to the public, the gallery show runs from Oct. 1-28,
and will kick-off with an opening reception from 6-8 p.m., Thursday, Oct.
1, at the UMF Art Gallery.

This rich, oddly disconcerting exhibition is part of UMF's Poe/After Poe
University Forum Series of creative arts, literature, music, film and
scholarly events. Featuring the works of artists from all over New England,
"After Poe" is a tribute to the spirit of macabre invention and dark
romance that infuses all of Poe's work.

"After Poe: Works of Mystery and Imagination," is a juried show featuring
the works of: Julia Bykowski, Christin Couture, Shain Erin, Robert Gregory
Griffeth, Kym Hepworth, Melissa Kulig, Debe Loughlin, Nancy Milliken,
Petrea Noyes, Stacey Page and Robin Stein.

From Shain Erin's exquisitely crafted dolls, poignant in their mummified
finery, to Debe Loughlin's visceral and enigmatic constructions, to Robert
Gregory Griffith's dark, unsettling and strangely iconic photographs, these
artists revel in the intricacies of the inexplicable. Like Poe himself,
they embrace the poetics of loss and the vagaries of the imagination,
reinventing ghostly and mundane mysteries with insight and elegance.

The gallery is located at 246 Main St., Farmington. It is open from noon to
4 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday, during the UMF academic year and by
appointment. For more information, or to make special arrangements, please
call 207-778-7002, or email Elizabeth Olbert, director of the UMF Art
Gallery, at elizabeth.olbert@maine.edu.

More about the UMF Art Gallery

The UMF Art Gallery is a nonprofit professional art space dedicated to
bringing contemporary art and artists to campus and the regional community.
In its dedication to new art, the gallery reinforces the vision of the UMF
Department of Sound, Performance, and Visual Inquiry in celebrating art as
a powerful agent of social and cultural change, and artists as generators
of community and cultural identity. The gallery works with local schools to
integrate arts programming into their curricula and opens its space to
community events and gatherings.


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Media Contact: Elizabeth Olbert, director of the UMF Art Gallery, at
207-778-7002, or elizabeth.olbert@maine.edu.

EDITOR'S NOTE: You will find photo at
http://www.umf.maine.edu/campus/docs/RP090-008.jpg

Photo Credit: Submitted photo

Photo Caption: An exquisitely crafted Victorian Mummy art doll by artist
Shain Erin.