Portland Press Herald: Meet the 14 emerging Maine artists in the Portland Museum of Art’s ‘As We Are’

None have shown their work at the PMA before.

October 18, 2024
by Megan Gray

Originally Posted in the Portland Press Herald, read it here.

“As We Are” at the Portland Museum of Art features 14 emerging arts with connections to Maine. Read about their work in their own words with an excerpt from their artist statements.

Rachel Gloria Adams is a multidisciplinary artist living in Portland. “I am constantly bouncing back and forth between sewing shapes and painting them. I find that I sew what I can’t paint and paint what I can’t sew.”

 Elana Adler is a multidisciplinary artist born in Michigan and currently based in Portland. She also teaches at the Maine College of Art & Design. “I use the grid as a tactical mapping system and a geometric configuration inherited from the past. It is a constant variable that is continually translated and transformed.”

Maya Tihtiyas Attean is a Wabanaki artist living and working in Portland. “Through the lens of Wabanaki history and culture, my work unveils strands of forgotten stories in what is now known as ‘Maine.’ The intergenerational trauma etched into the landscape finds echoes in my creations, which emphasize the enduring scars embedded in both the earth and bodies.”

 Oscar Chacon is a Texas-based artist who earned his MFA from MECA&D. “My current practice centers around an exploration of identity – particularly gender and sexuality – through drawing and collage.”

 James Parker Foley grew up in New Hampshire and now works in Portland. He earned his MFA at the Maine College of Art in 2020. “My paintings are set within the world of my mind: a spare, utopian iteration of the Maine coast. The recent works are predominantly blue and set at night – I find this creates a lucid, expansive space. In this world, water and sky might be interchangeable.”

 Meg Hahn is an artist and arts organizer in Portland. “More recently, I have composed my work by layering color, building forms through collaging geometric shapes, and constructing imagined shadows and lighting. I like to use a range of hues within the same color family to create an invitation to look more closely and slowly.”

 Dylan Hausthor is based on an island off the coast of Maine. “I’m interested in photography as a medium of hybridity and nuance – weavings of myth filled with tangents and nuances, treading the lines between investigative journalism, disinformation, performance, acts of obsession, and self-conscious manipulation.”

 Jenny Ibsen is an artist, restaurant worker and organizer based in Portland. “These ceramics explore the technical relationships between texture, form, and color, while conceptually, my work explores ideas of sustenance and care, labor, and play.”

 Hector Nevarez Magaña is a Mexican American photographer living and working in Portland. “My photographs perform like poems; short bursts of mundanity interlaced with residue of instance from romance, remembrance, faith, and death.”

 Tessa Greene O’Brien is an artist and curator based in South Portland. “My practice is centered around themes of love, perception, and a sense of place. I make autobiographical paintings using imagery from personal snapshots and family photos from my rural Maine childhood.”

 Brian Smith is a Portland-based artist. “I create sculptures, paintings, and drawings conceptualizing a future reality in which humans adapt and migrate (back) to the seas that land creatures evolved from, to survive the climate catastrophe and rising waters.”

 Jay Stern lives and works in the Midcoast. “There’s a power in the quotidian nature of my subject matter. I hope the work will fulfill a similar function to that of portraiture, in that the evidence of a human life or experience is clearly present.”

 Anna Valenti holds an MFA from MECA&D and currently works in Colorado. “Using fiber clay and hemplime blocks to build architectural installations, my work centers around gathering spaces that cultivate connection. I draw inspiration from structures of support associated with courtyards, such as trellises, pergolas, and woven vessels.”

 Holden Willard is a painter based in Portland. “I’m mainly striving towards creating a dialogue between the past, present, and future, be it through the lens of family, friends, or the environment. In my mind, these are essential devices that I utilize to create a coming-of-age narrative in Maine.”