BIDDEFORD, Maine - Art works and installations by University of New England students enrolled in courses in the Creative and Fine Arts Department go on display in the Hallway Gallery of Biddeford's North Dam Mills complex and other venues beginning Friday, Sept. 25, 2009 during the BikeArtWalk beginning at 5:00 p.m.

Five courses are exhibiting four instructor-led projects that are created entirely by the students. Students enrolled in Adjunct Instructor Andy Rosen's Sculpture I course are assisting the artist/instructor in creating a new sculpture/installation devised by the artist.

Projects will be on exhibit through mid-October.


Professor Burt's drawing class.

• Assistant Professor Sarah Gorham’s Painting I students will be exhibiting their personal investigations of process in landscape painting in an installation entitled the Anatomy of a Painting.
• Assistant Professor Stephen Burt’s Drawing I students are each creating personal crests or coats of arms that will become part of a larger single installation investigating identity and meaning.
• Rosen (one of this year's Portland's Museum of Art's Biennial artists) is creating an installation with the assistance of his Sculpture I students.
• Adjunct Instructor Deborah Randall’s Drawing I class is creating a series of large-scale silhouettes inspired by the contemporary artist Kara Walker.

Burt explained that while it is unusually early in the semester for creating student work for exhibition (many classes will have met only three times by exhibit time) faculty felt that the opportunity of participating in the Biddeford Arts Invasion weekend was too valuable to pass up.

Students have been learning essential studio practice, refining ideas through critique and group discussion as well as the nuts and bolts of planning, assembling, and installing an exhibit.  Download a poster.

(Press release posted Sept. 22, 2009)