Congress Streets non-profit arts and music venue SPACE Gallery kicked off their unjurried show of local artwork last Friday, providing a few USM art students and employees with their first opportunity to show in a gallery outside of campus.
The show, titled “Free For All 2” is the second unjurried show that SPACE has hosted. The show solicits work from any local artist, and saw over 150 submissions this year. The show will hang through mid-February, and gives artists, both established and amateur, the chance to have their work seen and purchased by anyone passing through for one of SPACE’s art and music events.
“There are a lot of artists in Portland, not a lot of them get to show,” said Christina Mesevage, SPACE’s Community Relations Manager, who also had a photograph in the show. Mesevage said that the unjurried show, which accepts one piece of art from anyone who submitted by the deadline, brings in a great range of work.
“It’s nice to have a first show next to an artists who has been showing a lot” said Mesevage, noting, “there is a lot of pretty high quality stuff.”
“I’ve never shown anywhere bigger than a USM gallery,” said senior photography major Chelsea Dowd. “I wanted to have something show outside of school.” Dowd is also currently an intern at SPACE, where she photographs concerts and events, and helped hang the current show.
“For someone not exhibiting art frequently, it’s a professional way to do that,” said Alicia Sampson, a AmeriCorp Vista with the USM Office of Civic Engagement and Community Service. Sampson, whose brightly colored gouache and watercolor portrait of an American Indian is on display as part of the show.
Sampson had only previously shown her work as part of the “USM After Dark” show in the Woodbury Campus Center, an installation meant to promote the work done by USM employees in their spare time.
Sampson’s first solo show, “I sail oceans in maps”, will debut at Hope.Gate.Way’s gallery space at 185 High Street during next month’s Art Walk on Feb 5th.
Also exhibiting as part of the Free For All 2 show is USM junior Nick Reddy, a printmaking student and Portland tattoo artist. “One of my new year’s resolutions was to try to show my work a little bit more, instead of making it and putting it under my bed,” said Reddy.
“It’s a good opportunity for people who don’t have a lot of experience to get over that initial hump of putting work out there and having it presented in a public space,” he said.
Reddy also plans to show at Sanctuary Tattoo’s heavy metal themed exhibit, debuting during the February Art Walk. He is also trying to coordinate a group or solo show with the Corduroy Surf Boutique on Market Street, which also has a gallery space for local art.