Artist-in-Residence Jesseca Ferguson ArtTalk

University of Southern Maine Artist-in-Residence Jesseca Ferguson will give a free talk about her pinhole photographs and collaged photo objects on Friday, March 16, 1 pm in the Art Department's Burnham Lounge located in Robie Andrews Hall on the Gorham campus. The talk is free and open to the public with a snow date of March 23.  For detailed driving and parking directions visit www.usm.maine.edu/gallery/map-directions and look for Lecture Series in the Visual Arts or call 207.780.5008.

Ferguson lives, works, and teaches in Boston, MA. has been spending much of the spring semester making work in her on-campus USM studio, teaching a class, and informally engaging with USM faculty, staff and students. Ferguson's pinhole photographs and collaged photo objects portray familiar objects with the odd clarity of dreams or memory. Six of Ferguson's works focusing on the female figure are featured in the current USM Art Gallery exhibit The Myths, on view until April 4.

Ferguson's pinhole photographs and collaged “photo objects” have been included in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe.  Museums holding her work include the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, France; the Museum of the History of Photography, Krakow, Poland; Brandts Kladefabrik, Odense, Denmark; Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; and the Ransom Center for the Humanities, Austin, TX among others.  Handmade Pictures by Jesseca Ferguson, a solo show of thirty-five of her works were on exhibit at the Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock Abbey, Chippenham, Wiltshire, England from January through June 2011.

Ferguson has received grants to support her photographic projects from the LEF Foundation; the Engelhard Foundation; Art Matters, Inc.; Polaroid Corporation: and the Trust for Mutual Understanding (twice).  Artist residencies include MacDowell Colony and 3rd International Artists’ Colony of Debrecen, Hungary. Her work has been published nationally and internationally in a number of books, catalogues, and articles on the subject of handmade photography. Since 1998 she has been engaged in cultural exchange with Poland, through the medium of pinhole photography.  She has exhibited her own work in Poland in a number of group and solo shows and has also facilitated and organized exhibitions of work by contemporary Polish photographers in the US.



Carolyn Eyler
Director of Exhibitions and Programs
University of Southern Maine Art Gallery
37 College Avenue
Gorham, Maine 04038
207-780-5008
www.usm.maine.edu/gallery
www.facebook.com/USMArtGallery