"Direct Snap" opening reception UNE Art Gallery Biddeford

“Direct Snap” looks into the pattern, ritual, and focus inherent to athletics.  Artists Jo Ophardt (working with football imagery) and Miguel Pavón (looking at boxers and their environment) present work that investigates the psyche of the athlete and the collaboration of the spectator. Like a sporting event, the exhibition revolves around carefully choreographed repetition.  The gaze becomes a central anchor that links the viewer to both small moments and the larger role that professionalized sports play in American society, in which theatricality and redirected aggression are tempered by humanity and individual integrity.  

 

In “Direct Snap”, we find both formal exploration and a fundamental sense of empathy for the athletes who make up the artists’ subject matter.