The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Reed Fine Art Gallery will presentRevelations by UMPI Art Professor Anderson Giles from April 22 through June 8, 2013. The public is invited to view the exhibition throughout the show’s run and gather for a gallery reception, being held in conjunction with the Presque Isle First Friday Art Walk, on Friday, May 3 from 5-7 p.m. A gallery talk with the artist will take place at 5:30 p.m.
A painter, photographer, gallery director, and filmmaker, Giles has long created works that have been in over 100 solo and group exhibitions throughout New York, Chicago, Montreal, Albuquerque, Portland, Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Virginia Governor’s trophy and a 1997 Telly Award. Art Critic Edgar Allan Beam described his work as “big bold colorful canvases evocative of deep psychic space and hot with the residue of myth and mysticism…his paintings seem not learned but lived, like direct transcriptions of intuited experience. He brings to the modern conventions of abstract painting both a powerful emotional urgency and a sense of art as a personal quest for knowledge… One sees in Giles’ paintings the same searching, haunting lyricism that one hears in the music of Van Morrison.”
Revelations is a survey exhibition that presents selected works representing Giles’ expansive career as a painter. To quote Giles, his work “(explores) the inner arena of consciousness where the experiences of life lie stored, ready to be re-understood and re-synthesized into new understandings and images.”
He makes visual reference to the “vast empty northern Maine landscape with its primordial glow;” however, his extensive research and documentary work on the island of Tinian in the southwestern Pacific has had a profound impact on his work. “This tiny island launched us into the holocaust of Nagasaki and Hiroshima,” Giles recalls. “Many of my new paintings reflect this immense drama with its history of triumph, defeat, suffering, survival, accomplishment, and spiritual transcendence.”
Art Critic CeCe Bullard noted: “Giles’ works become visual metaphors for the arduous journey of the spirit… While Giles first seizes the senses, he pushes beyond the obvious to capture the psyche. His paintings speak to our primal passions and to those profound truths which are strongly felt but difficult to articulate… his paintings are equal to the enormousness of his ideas.”
“This exhibition honors Giles’ career at the University,” Reed Director Heather Sincavage stated. “His impact can be felt across campus but also stretches into the community and beyond. He is highly revered by his students and former students. So many look to Andy for his wisdom and insight. This exhibition not just honors his role as an educator, but more importantly, Giles’ (to quote Beam) ‘personal quest for knowledge.'”
This exhibition is dedicated in memory of his brother, Charles Giles.
Revelations will be on display from April 22 through June 8, 2013, in the Reed Gallery. There will be a First Friday Reception during the May 3 Art Walk, from 5-7 p.m. The reception is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. Revelations will also be open to the public for the June 7 First Friday Art Walk, from 5-7 p.m.
The Reed Fine Art Gallery is open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The gallery is closed Sundays and University holidays. For more information about this event, please contact Sincavage at 768-9442 or heather.sincavage@maine.edu.
