Bowdoin's first student art show of the year opened on August 31 and is showcasing the work of Morgan MacLeod '09, Norah Maki '09, and Samantha Smith '06. Their work, which is on display in the Visual Arts Center (VAC) through September 21, will provide students and the Brunswick community with an opportunity to experience the visual pleasures of Maine in the throes of summer.
To complete their work, the students received Rusack Fellowships, which are offered to Bowdoin students every summer through the Coastal Studies Center. While many of the fellowships are for scientific research, a few are available to art students.
The subject matter of these students' displays involves similar scenery, but their approaches and mediums are varied.
Smith, who has both monotype prints and dry point/aquatint prints on display, stressed the "repetitive and sometimes abstract qualities" of the rocks that make up much of Maine's coastal landscape.
"Towards the end of the summer I started to look for these same abstract qualities in other aspects of the property, like tree stumps and grasses," she writes in her artist's statement.
Covering a full wall of the VAC fishbowl and a section of the space below, Smith's predominantly black and white prints provide a distinct contrast to her peers' work, the two tones enhancing the repetitive qualities that she examines.
Over the summer, Smith spent several days at a time at the Coastal Studies Center followed by a day or two in the art studio. "I've never had a more relaxing summer in my life," she says.
The other two-thirds of the show is made up of photographs. In Maki's case, however, the photographs are but a representation of her actual work. She is a sculptor by craft and her work is actually installed in the natural landscape. This integration of foreign material both disrupts and engages with the organic aspects of the surrounding scenery.
MacLeod has a vibrant collection of photographs on display. These were made on excursions to the Center, often at sunrise.
"All the sensible people were still in bed, so I pretty much had the place to myself," he said.
"The Coastal Studies Center is such an impressive place, but in a subtle way. There's no gaping canyons, or icebergs or mountains. My pictures are an attempt to share some of the perhaps not immediately obvious, but still strikingly beautiful, places which I was lucky enough to come across in my wanderings," he added.
The exhibit also includes an old-fashioned box camera that MacLeod built by hand. He did not base the camera on a specific model, but instead fit many different designs together while preserving the camera's utility.
Thanks to the work of these three artists, Bowdoin students have only a short distance to travel to recapture the hazy glows of summer as the leaves begin to fall and temperatures start to encourage sweaters.