“American Conversations: Short Films and Artifacts,” a perceptive new media exhibit by Dawn Nye, UMF associate professor of Art – New Media, launches the spring semester lineup at the UMF Emery Community Arts Center. The exhibit runs from Thursday, Jan. 27, through Wednesday, March 9.

An opening reception will take place from 5-7 p.m. on Thursday, Jan 27. An artist talk is scheduled for 11:45 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 2.

“American Conversations” marks the start of a new body of work by Nye pertaining to the conversations and stories we tell ourselves and others every day. Through looking at formative moments in her subjects’ lives, she asks the questions: at what point do our disparate stories meet? And when does the personal become universal? Combining interviews, animation and print media, her work aims to transcend traditional documentary and reveal these intimate stories in a way that honors our collective experience.

Nye has worked as a graphic designer and has also maintained a studio art practice for the last 20 years. She has exhibited and screened her work in the United States as well as in Europe. She is most interested with telling stories of conflicting human desires, best intentions, beauty and futility. She uses humor, pathos and the history of image to connect to ideas that cannot be accurately described with words. She is influenced by graphic design, film, animation, music, literature and the history of art–but also by the people she meets, the neighborhoods she has lived in and the headlines she reads.

She earned an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in New Media and Design. Since then, her work has been screened and shown nationally and internationally in film festivals and art galleries, most notably at The Art Kitchen in Milan, The Torpedo Gallery and the CICA Museum in South Korea.

The Emery Community Arts Center gallery hours are Monday-Friday from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; and Saturday from 12-6 p.m. (Closed Sundays and holidays). The exhibit and related events are free and open to the public. Masks are required at all indoor events, at all times, by all attendees on UMF’s campus. All visitors to Emery Community Arts Center will be required to register with name and contact information upon entry. This information will only be used if the university needs to conduct contact tracing in the event of a confirmed exposure to the coronavirus. Updates to COVID-19 protocols for all University of Maine System campuses can be found at https://www.maine.edu/together/community-guidance/everyone/.

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