Postcard design by Frederica Shorey for UMA Virtual Student Art Exhibition – An acrylic painting titled ‘Rainy Day Blues.” Submitted photo

The UMA Virtual 2021 Student Art Exhibition is now live on the website of the Charles Danforth Gallery at the University of Maine at Augusta. The exhibit features seventy artworks by forty UMA students and was juried by UMA art faculty, with awards chosen by Dr. Bethany Engstrom, associate curator at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art and lecturer at UMA. Dr. Engstrom’s award selections will be announced on the Danforth website and on social media on Friday, March 12. The virtual exhibition is on display through Saturday, April 3, and can be viewed at danforth.uma.edu.

The Student Art Exhibition offers UMA students the opportunity and encouragement to exhibit their work in a professional setting, and to explore the work of their peers across courses and terms that they might not otherwise see. Most of all, the exhibition highlights and celebrates the work of UMA students completed during their coursework in the art department. Usually an annual exhibition, last year’s show was cancelled due to Covid-19, making this year’s exhibition an eagerly anticipated event.

“The art department is enormously proud of what our students have achieved,” stated Amy Rahn, Danforth Gallery director and UMA assistant professor of art history. “This has been a challenging year, yet our students have risen to the occasion. Their creativity and determination are clearly visible in the virtual exhibition.”

This year, the exhibition also included a postcard design contest administered by Danforth Gallery intern Becky Pass. The winning postcard design contest was Frederica Shorey’s acrylic painting “Rainy Day Blues.”

Encompassing seventy works in media ranging from paint to plaster to pastel, this year’s Student Art Exhibition demonstrates the creativity and skill of UMA’s art students. Installed virtually in the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, the exhibition is also a celebration of UMA’s students, and the ways they have persevered in creating and exhibiting their works.

Follow Danforth Gallery on Facebook and Instagram using the handle @UMADanforth, or by visiting our website at danforth.uma.edu, where you can subscribe to Danforth Gallery emails to stay current with events related to this exhibition and others.