past exhibitions : from baja to bar harbor: transnational contemporary art

June 9-October 22, 2006

Sam Van Aken , Michele O'Marah, Julio Cesar Morales, Justin Richel

June 9, 2006

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Artists' talks at 6 p.m. followed by opening reception at 7:30 p.m.

With a special performance by William Pope.L's Black Factory also from

7:30 - 9:30 p.m.

From Baja to Bar Harbor: Transnational Contemporary Art presents an exciting selection of new large-scale video and installation works by three emerging artists working in different corners of North American.

The exhibition-whose title is meant to be pronounced with a Maine accent-features work by artists Sam van Aken and Justin Richel of Maine, Michele O'Marah and Julio Morales, of California.

Oh My God, 2003, a sound installation consisting of a gallery-spanning expanse of stacked stereo speakers, is inspired by Sam van Aken's response to television coverage of the 9/11 attacks.  Sampling hundreds of its

title's signature phrase from news clips, action movies, and porno films, van Aken creates a looming "wailing wall" reflecting life's agony and ecstasy.

Michele O'Marah's video Valley Girl, 2002, is a scene-by-scene remake of the eponymous 1983 teen cult film starring Nicholas Cage.  Shot using the artist's friends, most of whom are artists, as actors, and actual

locations throughout Los Angeles, Valley Girl is an ebullient testament to the power of do-it-yourself creativity.

Reared on both sides of the San Diego/Tijuana border, Bay-Area artist Julio Morales uses advanced visual strategies to examine informal economies in the American and Mexican states of California and Baja California.  For a new work commissioned by the ICA at MECA, Morales employs transforms photographs of Latino pushcart entrepreneurs into swirling, deconstructed collages of adhesive vinyl.

Justin Richel graduated from MECA in 2002 with a major in printmaking . He went on to receive a fellowship from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. He has also studied the technique of icon painting at the

Franciscan Monastery in Kennebunk, ME. His work has been exhibited at the Portland Museum of Art and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art.

Organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art,

From Baja to Bar Harbor: Transnational Contemporary Art is on view from

June 7 through October 22, 2006.