May 30 – June 30, 2018
Waterville, Maine — Common Street Arts, the programmatic arm of Waterville Creates!, is pleased to present Prints at the Scale of People, an exhibition of printmaking that explores oversized examples of the medium. On view at Common Street Arts from May 30 – June 30, 2018. An opening reception for the new exhibition will be held on Thursday, May 31 from 5:00 – 7:00pm.
This exhibition features dynamic works by Stephen Benenson, Rebecca Goodale, Anna Hepler, and Elizabeth Jabar, showcasing a wide range of printmaking techniques to offer new perspectives on the potential of prints that reflect the human experience at “life size.” Composed on a single sheet of paper, or through an additive approach of many small-scale prints joined together, works in the exhibition are as large or larger than the human form with dimensions that evoke those more traditionally associated with painting, sculpture, and installation art.
About the Artists
Stephen Benenson is a painter who has lived and worked in Portland, Maine for the past decade. Stephen received his MFA in Painting from the Yale School of Art in 2014 and maintains a studio at the Space Studios building. His practice focuses on experimental application of geometry and color, juxtaposed with references to art history and children’s drawings.
Rebecca Goodale is a book artist, whose work can be found in numerous public collections throughout the United States including the local collections at Bowdoin College Library, the Maine Women Writers Collection, and the Portland Museum of Art. Her awards include A New Forms Regional Initiative Grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts, and a Mellon Grant for the Humanities at Bates College. She was a Resident Scholar for the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska in 1995, currently teaches Design and Book Arts for the USM Art Department and is the Program Coordinator for USM’s Kate Cheney Chappell’83 Center for Book Arts.
Situated between two- and three-dimensional, Anna Hepler’s poetic sculptures, installations, and works on paper reflect her fascination with structures both fixed and ephemeral. Using labor-intensive methods, Hepler reconstructs the form she observes around her, then plays with their dimensionality, creating geometric shapes that she inflates and deflates, transforming flat strips of plastic and fabric into bulbous protrusions, and producing cyanotypes and prints from her three-dimensional works. Hepler is especially taken with a latticed, spherical shape, which loosely resembles Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome, and which she revisits in many of her works.
Elizabeth Jabar is a feminist printmaker who explores a range of personal-political issues in her work including cultural identity, representation, equity and maternal ethics. Her practice is located in the studio, the classroom, and the community where she co-creates collaborative and participatory projects with students, colleagues, and community members. Her hybrid works on paper and cloth display a highly personal visual language that incorporates motifs from popular culture, folk art, religious traditions and textiles. Elizabeth’s printed objects and environments embody printmaking’s democratic tradition of resistance and collective power while reflecting her commitment to art as a tool for social change.
For more information about the featured artists and their works, visit: http://www.commonstreetarts.org/event/prints-at-the-scale-of-people/
The Common Street Arts gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday from 12:00 – 5:00pm. Beginning in June, the gallery is open until 6:00 p.m. on Thursdays. To learn more about the Prints at the Scale of People exhibition at Common Street Arts, visit: http://www.commonstreetarts.org
About Waterville Creates!
Waterville Creates! promotes increased awareness of cultural opportunities and events while supporting enhanced programming and operations for its community partners and audiences. Waterville Creates! provides marketing, administrative, and development services to arts and cultural institutions in the greater Waterville area. Learn more at https://www.watervillecreates.org