BANGOR, Maine — Artists Alisa Henriquez and Thomas Berding have shown their work in the same galleries and museums before.
At places such as Gallery 406 at Elon University in North Carolina and the Emison Art Center at DePauw University in Indiana, exhibitions have highlighted the two artists — each with different methodologies who shared a commitment to art. In addition to this shared commitment, the two are married and have been for more than 25 years. Despite their interconnected lives, their art shows distinct differences, in both form and content.
Starting May 13, The University of Maine Museum of Art at 40 Harlow St. in downtown Bangor will open two new solo exhibitions featuring these artists, which will run through Sept. 10.
“Remnant States,” a solo exhibition of paintings by Berding, is composed of more than 40 abstract paintings ranging from large canvases to a variety of smaller compositions, each with vibrant color and visible movement.
“I’m a person who came up through a working-class family, and to me, as an artist, making art is an ultimate act of imagination. It’s a way of combining one’s physical world and one’s interiority,” Berding said.
Berding’s work was made in response to the post-industrial landscape he’s familiar with in his hometown of East Lansing, Michigan.
“We’re surrounded by the remnants and structures that represent a huge industrial build up. At one point, industry was a point of adulation in our country,” Berding said.
His artist’s statement reads as follows: “Ultimately it is my hope that, like the urban landscapes they ruminate on, the paintings teem with a sort of double consciousness, a prevailing sense of both, the future-present and the ever present — past.”
Berding’s work will be featured in the Main Gallery of UMMA. Featured in the Leonard Gallery will be Henriquez’s exhibition, titled “The Constructed Body.”
Her artwork acts as commentary, addressing socially constructed ideals of beauty while exploring history, belief and notions of self.
“I’m borrowing from popular culture and taking things from contemporary women’s magazines — magazines geared towards women — and appropriating images from those magazines. I’m really interested in challenging those notions of representation through appropriating them,” Henriquez said.
Glossy lips and blackened eyelashes live together in her works with images of art history figures, including Adam and Eve. Beauty ideals of hundreds of years ago coexist with those of today in her assemblages. And although they are distinctly different, the ideal still exists.
Henriquez uses materials such as magazine images, found objects, acrylic paint and even glitter, creating oval and pill-shaped assemblage arrangements. Berding’s works feature mediums such as oil and acrylic on canvas. The two bodies of separate solo exhibitions are vastly different in medium and commentary, yet Berding and Henriquez recognize that through coexisting over the years, they have been influenced by one another.
“We’re artists who have worked side by side since we’ve known each other,” Berding said. “We have likenesses and differences in a way that creates compelling dialogue, and we each have our own distinct voices.”
Henriquez said those with a knowledge of art history may be able to see similarities in their works but also said their voices are distinct.
“We come at our work from very different perspectives,” she said.
And yet they share a similar goal.
“We’re both very interested in how art can bring new awareness,” Berding said.
In addition to the work of Henriquez and Berding, the Zillman Gallery will feature small paintings from the museum’s collection in an exhibition titled “What’s the Big Idea: Small Paintings from the Museum Collection.” The Permanent Collection gallery will also offer “Distorted Perceptions: UMMA’s Young Curators” with works selected and curated by UMMA’s young curators, a program that offers local youth an experience in curatorial practice.
Admission to UMMA is free in 2016 thanks to the sponsorship of Deighan Wealth Advisors. The museum is open Monday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
