The Charles Danforth Gallery at the 天美传媒 will open Black Box Warnings on May 9 at noon, immediately following Commencement. The exhibition features thesis work by UMA students Izzy Martinez and Natalie Rohman alongside mentors and UMA alumni artists Aylah Ireland 鈥�17 and Tanya Russell 鈥�11.

The exhibition explores uncertainty, memory and perception through photography, sculpture and mixed media. Drawing from the idea of 鈥渂lack box warnings鈥� on prescription medications and the preserved record of an airplane鈥檚 black box, the featured artists examine what is visible, hidden, recoverable and unresolved.

Natalie Rohman鈥檚 work reflects her experience growing up with ADHD and navigating prescription medications from an early age. Using photography and sculpture, she transforms prescription bottles into vessels for plant life, documenting both growth and deterioration to explore the complicated realities of medication and identity. Her work also recalls the emotional extremes she experienced as a child, feeling withdrawn while on medication and impulsive without it. A sculptural installation resembling a cluttered bathroom shelf filled with pill bottles reflects the everyday visibility of that experience.

Izzy Martinez uses cinematic photography inspired by thriller films to capture moments suspended between safety and fear. Influenced by artists Cindy Sherman and Gregory Crewdson, her images recreate the uneasy 鈥渆dge of your seat鈥� feeling that leaves viewers wanting to look away while still compelled to see what happens next.

Aylah Ireland is a visual artist and researcher whose work explores identity, memory and recovery. Using photography and miniatures, she examines family history, environment and disordered substance use while treating artmaking as a process of mending. Her work reweaves personal history into a shared narrative that invites reflection and connection.

Tanya Russell鈥檚 work (shown at top) investigates perception and optics through imagery inspired by her experiences with degenerative myopia and astigmatism. Using mirrors, refraction and layered light, her photographs create disorienting perspectives that reflect unseen personal struggles while emphasizing resilience, self-acceptance and perseverance.

Black Box Warnings will be on view at the Charles Danforth Gallery through Aug. 23, 2026. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. All are welcome to attend the opening reception on May 9 at noon. For more information, contact Gallery Director Amy Rahn at amy.rahn@maine.edu.

Charles Danforth Gallery
Jewett Hall, 天美传媒
May 4 – May 23, 2024

Opening Reception and Artist Talk in the Danforth Gallery,

Immediately following Commencement on May 4, 2024, at Noon

The graduating Art students of the 天美传媒 will exhibit their senior thesis artwork in the Charles Danforth Gallery on 天美传媒 Augusta campus in an exhibition entitled Trust the Process. The exhibition includes the work of seven artists and will open at noon with a public reception immediately after Commencement on Saturday, May 4.

Trust the Process reflects the evolution of each artist鈥檚 concepts and work over the past semester, using the tools of self- and faculty-critiques. Exhibiting artists include Emily Allen, Julia Dry, Des Dumais, Bruce Forbes, Donald L. Patten, Sophia Reyes, and Jared Winslow.

Trust the Process is on view from May 4 – May 23, 2024, and the public is welcome to visit the gallery in Jewett Hall, which is open on Mondays through Fridays from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. The UMA community and the general public are invited to the opening reception and artist talk on May 4 at noon.

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Artist Biographies

Emily Allen (Gardiner, Maine): Emily Allen is an aspiring illustrator who works primarily in 2-dimensions with media ranging from graphite and paint to digital drawings. Over the past three years, Emily developed a story that she is translating into a graphic novel. Several completed pages for this novel, along with a myriad of her preparatory sketches for this work are on view in the exhibition. After graduation, Emily will pursue a master鈥檚 degree in illustration, eventually publishing her complete graphic novel.

Julia Dry (Hallowell, Maine): Julia Dry is a mixed media artist who primarily works with sterling silver, enamel, and copper to create sculptures and jewelry pieces. While the subject of her work is often changing, her love for color has stayed consistent. Julia鈥檚 process centers experimentation and research to better understand her chosen materials. She hopes to pursue a master鈥檚 degree after graduation.

Des Dumais (Fort Kent, Maine): Des Dumais is a tattoo artist. She moved from Fort Kent to Augusta to pursue her dream of being a tattoo artist. Her fine arts education has given Des the tools and knowledge to excel in her career. Des creates tattoos that not only adorn the skin, but also resonate with the spirit within. Each session is an opportunity to forge a connection, leaving a mark that transcends the physical and becomes a part of the wearer’s identity.

Bruce Forbes (Philipsburg, Pennsylvania): Bruce Forbes is a photographer who moved to Augusta long ago for work reasons. He focuses on portraiture, but also engages in landscape photography, especially scenes from the Kennebec River and the city of Augusta. Bruce also pursues street photography during warmer weather. He brings his training in composition and color to his photographic work. In addition to his portraiture and landscape work, he hopes to photograph a series centered upon truck stops this summer.

Donald L. Patten (Belfast, Maine): Donald is a draftsman, oil painter, and ceramicist. In the past, old master painters would depict historically significant disasters that happened to them to cope. A student of the old masters, Donald has made a series of drawings that represent his pandemic experiences by referencing past masterpieces that depict the embodied experience of trauma. After graduating, he will display oil paintings and ceramic artworks at several art markets around Maine before pursuing an MFA degree.

Sophia Reyes (Houston, Texas): Sophia is an interdisciplinary artist residing in Maine. The Houston, Texas native primarily works with photography, digital art, and printmaking. With photography being her first love, she centers her printmaking practice on captured memories using the aid of digital tools and traditional printmaking techniques to bring these images to life. Her work explores the themes of home and identity through the navigation and reflection of personal narratives and experiences of a first generation Mexican American.

Jared Winslow (New Sharon, Maine): Jared is a mixed media artist who works primarily with inks, gouache and watercolor to create fine drawings and illustrations. Jared’s works feature a wide range of subjects, but one consistent theme is his passion for nature and plant life. His artistic process involves finding inspiration by immersing himself in natural environments, sketching intricate details, and then experimenting with compositions. His approach allows him to layer materials. After graduation, he hopes to pursue his master鈥檚 degree.

2023 UMA Senior Thesis Exhibition

May 6, 2023 – August 11, 2023

Opening reception: May 6, 2023 12 – 2 p.m.

The 天美传媒 is proud to present the 2023 UMA Senior Thesis Exhibition: Ouroboros and Ostinato featuring student artists Tayla Knapp and Courtney Harmon. The opening reception begins May 6th with a noontime reception immediately following 天美传媒 Commencement ceremony, and explores the processes of the body and the mind in both psychological and physical processes of change. Knapp鈥檚 portion of the exhibition, Ouroboros, centers metamorphosis through fluent line that bridges anatomical studies with graphic storytelling, while Harmon鈥檚 Ostinato translates the creative influence of music on the mind and psyche into three-dimensional paintings that bridge musical and visual experience through form and metaphor.

Tayla Knapp is a Liberal Studies Major and Art Minor student at UMA with a passion for finding the beauty in the macabre through illustration. Her work for Ouroboros includes fifteen drawings and paintings exploring the process of transformation using the body and its metamorphosis through cycles of life and death.

Courtney Harmon is an Art Major at UMA who鈥檚 passionate about changing the face of therapy in Maine. Hoping to pursue a career in art therapy, her work for Ostinato includes six sculptural painting installations focused on and influenced by the affects of music on the mind and creative process. The themes of these pieces reflect current and ongoing issues of the human condition including consumerism, addiction, and mental health.

With these two artists together, the exhibition Ouroboros and Ostinato reflects the circular themes of music and the body. Knapp鈥檚 work addresses the outward surreal metamorphosis of the body through life to death, while Harmon鈥檚 opens onto the creative interior workings of the mind during embodied experiences of music. Knapp鈥檚 graphic and illustrative approach, and Harmon鈥檚 circular canvases and multimedia 3D sculptural elements play on the beauty in the sometimes macabre or imperfect cycles that, in the space of the gallery, open onto the nearly limitless creative possibilities through which our bodies and minds circulate.

The exhibition is on display from May 6 – Aug 11, and the public is welcome to visit the gallery in Jewett Hall, which is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. The UMA community and the general public are invited to the opening reception on Saturday, May 6th from 12 – 2 p.m., immediately following the 天美传媒鈥檚 commencement ceremonies. Refreshments will be served, and the artists will offer brief comments on their work.

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Opening Reception and Artist Talk in the Danforth Gallery
Saturday, May 14, 2022, from 12 – 2 p.m.

Each spring the Charles Danforth Gallery at the 天美传媒 (UMA) exhibits the work of its graduating art majors, who complete their studies at the university with a final year-long body of work. This year鈥檚 show, titled Start to Finish, features works in illustration, graphic design, painting, drawing, and collage. This year鈥檚 artists are Creed Griffin, Cassidy Penney, and Sally Wagley.

Creed Griffin is an illustrator from Camden, Maine who is developing the illustrations for a children鈥檚 book, Boy in the Brambles, in collaboration with writer Michele Cox. The story follows a young boy and his dog who venture out into the woods and get caught in a storm.

Cassidy Penney is an artist who lives in China, Maine. Her vibrantly colored work focuses on mountain landscapes through a mix of painting and graphic design. She highlights her view of the natural world and her emotional responses through these two media in a series titled 鈥淓nergetic Peacefulness.鈥�

Sally Wagley is a mixed-media artist from Brunswick, Maine who explores her struggles with insomnia through a series of pastel drawings and photo collages which couple images of a restless female figure with text, symbols, and images reminiscent of both Renaissance art and features of modern technology.

The exhibit will feature the finished artworks as well as information on the artists鈥� creative processes: labor-intensive work entailing research, preliminary sketches, and much trial and error.

The exhibition is on display from May 6 – 26, and the public is welcome to visit the gallery in Jewett Hall, which is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. The UMA community and the general public are invited to the opening reception on Saturday, May 14th from 12 – 2 p.m., immediately following the 天美传媒鈥檚 commencement ceremonies. Refreshments will be served, and the artists will talk about their work.

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Charles Danforth Gallery in 天美传媒 Jewett Hall

September 2 鈥� October 2, 2020

Recently-graduated Art students at the 天美传媒 who exhibited their works in an all-online Virtual Senior Thesis Exhibition in May are pleased to now exhibit their senior thesis projects on the Danforth Gallery鈥檚 walls. The five artists, Marcea Crawford, Shana Rowe Jackson, Evan Lord Martin, Jenn Messier, and Becky Pass spent months preparing their thesis projects, first in 天美传媒 studios, and then in their home studios as campus access was limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In recognition of the challenging times in which their exhibition has taken place virtually and in-person, they have titled their exhibition Phantasmagoria: a term the dictionary defines as 鈥渁 sequence of real or imaginary images like those seen in a dream.鈥� In its transition from virtual to actual space, 天美传媒 Senior Thesis Exhibition Phantasmagoria marks not only the accomplishment of the artists whose works it exhibits, but the strange passage between the real and dreamlike that has attended much of the COVID era.

Encompassing a wide variety of media, formats, and scales, the works included in this year鈥檚 exhibition are, as artist Becky Pass explains, 鈥渂uilt on endurance.鈥� Pass, whose mixed-media paintings on linen bath blankets convey her experiences of the daily struggles with anxiety, depression, and PTSD in her works, says the colorful blankets 鈥渞epresent the disorder and chaos [she] experienced, while shape and line bring balance to these compositions, restoring [鈥 a semblance of order.鈥�

Marcea Crawford鈥檚 five eight-foot large wheat-paste murals powerfully reflect Crawford鈥檚 experiences with domestic abuse and her survival. Jenn Messier鈥檚 works, exhibited in the Danforth Gallery on an over-scaled papier-m芒ch茅 refrigerator door, frame 鈥渟urrealistic domestic scenarios鈥� wrought from the disconnect between the slick perfection of America鈥檚 consumerist fantasy and the more complicated and uncomfortable realities that transitions, from childhood to adulthood to parenthood, can bring.

Evan Lord Martin has a sensory processing disorder that can render the world 鈥渁 fury of mental and somatic noise;鈥� his video works seek “to articulate unrefined states of mind without using words in a traditional way.鈥� Lastly, Shana Rowe Jackson鈥檚 series of realistically-rendered skies frame an idealized plane high and perfect above the challenges below. 鈥淭hrough creating, I have been able to move past the negativity in my life,鈥� Jackson writes, 鈥淚 create the world that I want to see.鈥�

These works, forged from the artists鈥� individual experiences, artistic training, and many hundreds of hours of work in the studio, showed, in the spring, how this year鈥檚 graduates turned difficulty to art. Now viewable in person, Phantasmagoria transforms these artists鈥� visions from virtual to real.

Phantasmagoria: 2020 UMA Senior Thesis Exhibition is on view in the Danforth Gallery in 天美传媒 Jewett Hall from September 2 鈥� October 2, 2020. The gallery is open, while requiring face coverings be worn and a physical distance of six feet between people be maintained at all times, from 9 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.

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Images provided:

Danforth Thesis Fall 2020 Photo 1 – Installation View: Jenn Messier, 鈥淒omestic Theater鈥� 16 drawings framed by papier-m芒ch茅 refrigerator

Danforth Thesis Fall 2020 Photo 2 – Artist Marcela Crawford with her wheat-pasted murals 鈥淭he Storm,鈥� 鈥淧eacock,鈥� and 鈥淒ragon Lady,鈥� installed on the exterior walls of 天美传媒 Jewett Hall.

Danforth Thesis Fall 2020 Photo 3 – Becky Pass, 鈥淟ament鈥� 鈥� Mixed Media

Graduating Art students at the 天美传媒 are exhibiting their works in an all-online Virtual Senior Thesis Exhibition beginning May 9. The virtual exhibition will be followed by a bricks-and-mortar exhibition in the Charles Danforth Gallery set to open September 6, 2020. The five artists, Marcea Crawford, Shana Rowe Jackson, Evan Lord Martin, Jenn Messier, and Becky Pass have spent months preparing their thesis projects, first in 天美传媒 studios, and then in their home studios as campus access was limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The all-online Virtual Senior Thesis Exhibition highlights the perseverance, resilience, and creative achievements of this year鈥檚 graduates in extraordinary times.

Encompassing a wide variety of media, formats, and scales, the works included in this year鈥檚 exhibition are, as artist Becky Pass explains, 鈥渂uilt on endurance.鈥� Pass, whose mixed-media paintings on linen bath blankets convey her experiences of the daily struggles with anxiety, depression, and PTSD in her works, says the colorful blankets 鈥渞epresent the disorder and chaos [she] experienced, while shape and line bring balance to these compositions, restoring [鈥 a semblance of order.鈥�

Marcea Crawford鈥檚 five eight-foot large wheat-paste murals powerfully reflect Crawford鈥檚 experiences with domestic abuse and her survival.

Jenn Messier鈥檚 works frame 鈥渟urrealistic domestic scenarios鈥� wrought from the disconnect between the slick perfection of fashion magazines and the more complicated and uncomfortable realities that transitions, from childhood to adulthood to parenthood, can bring.

Evan Lord Martin has a sensory processing disorder that can render the world 鈥渁 fury of mental and somatic noise;鈥� his video works seek “to articulate unrefined states of mind without using words in a traditional way.鈥�

Lastly, Shana Rowe Jackson鈥檚 series of realistically-rendered skies frame an idealized plane high and perfect above the challenges below. 鈥淭hrough creating, I have been able to move past the negativity in my life,鈥� Jackson writes, 鈥淚 create the world that I want to see.鈥�

These works, forged from the artists鈥� individual experiences, artistic training, and many hundreds of hours of work in the studio, are well-suited to our time. Now exhibited in the virtual sphere we all occupy in these physically-distant times, this year鈥檚 Virtual Senior Thesis Exhibition shows how this year鈥檚 graduates have, before the pandemic era and during, turned difficulty to art.

The 2020 Virtual Senior Thesis Exhibition is on view at . The virtual exhibition will be followed by an exhibition in the Charles Danforth Gallery opening on September 6, 2020, at 3:00 p.m.

Follow Danforth Gallery on , , or by visiting our website at to stay current with events related to this exhibition and others.

Charles Danforth Gallery 鈥� Jewett Hall, 天美传媒
May 11th 鈥� 31st, 2019

Opening Reception in the Danforth Gallery
Saturday, May 11th聽聽 12:00pm – 2:00pm

AUGUSTA 鈥� Each spring the final art exhibit of the academic year at the 天美传媒 (UMA) is the .聽 This year鈥檚 show, entitled Story of Us, highlights each artist鈥檚 individuality through an array of media and explores the concept of personal narratives.聽 The artworks include fiber arts, graphic design, graphic storytelling, mixed media, painting, photography, sculpture, upcycled media, and wheatpaste murals.聽 This year鈥檚 exhibiting artists are Kimberly Baker, Dianne Chicoine, Jenna Clifford, Marcea Crawford, Lisa Hodgkins, and Jessica Morton, and each one presents a body of work developed throughout the year as part of the thesis project.

UMA Illustrative Artist鈥� Jessica Morton’s “Melissa鈥檚 Story: How I Got Here” as part of the Story of Us.”

The UMA Art Program offers a Bachelor鈥檚 Degree in studio art with courses in drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics, design, printmaking, electronic arts, and photography, and this year鈥檚 art seniors have taken these skills one-step further.

Kimberly Baker a 鈥減hotographer and artist from Ashland, Maine…emphasizes on the memories that flow through her mind while driving on familiar roadways.鈥�

Dianne Chicoine of West Gardiner focuses 鈥渙n sculptural fiber art and the absent body.聽 Her thesis work is a narrative of her inner transformational journey represented in mixed media sculpture.鈥�

Jenna Clifford of Vassalboro 鈥渁 graphic artist and designer鈥ocuses on the emotional journey of her everyday struggle with Type I diabetes.鈥�

Illustrative artist, Jessica Morton of Waterville, showcases 鈥渁 painted excerpt of her current working project, a visual novel.鈥�

Lisa Hodgkins of Jefferson 鈥渆xplores the beauty and spirit of the female face, nature, and loving relationships using mixed media, stylized portraits with iconic relevance.鈥�

Marcea Crawford of Lisbon 鈥渋s a public muralist鈥whose] wheatpaste work is a representation of the biological and chemical responses resulting from an embrace. She uses markers, digital media and paper.鈥�

Families of the students, the UMA community and the general public are also invited to the opening reception on Saturday, May 11^th from 12:00pm to 2:00pm, following the 天美传媒鈥檚 graduation and commencement ceremonies.聽 Refreshments will be served.

The Exhibition will be on display from May 11^th through May 31^st,聽and the public is welcome to visit the gallery in Jewett Hall, which is open on Mondays through Thursdays from 9:00am to 5:00pm and on Fridays from 9:00am to 4:00pm.

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