UNE Art Gallery exhibit honors experience of death and loss starting March 6

The exhibit “Gone From My Sight” is about the universal experience of death and loss, with a focus on honoring sorrow creatively.  The show opens at the University of New England Art Gallery in Portland on March 6 and will run through June 8.

UNE Art Galleries and Exhibitions Director Hilary Irons said the exhibit explores how we can each witness death or loss with a spirit of curiosity and intention, while still recognizing grief.

Maine artists Jacqueline Scott, Rachel Sperry, Fran Vita-Taylor, and Ronnie Wilson, along with poet Hazel Koziol, express through their work a range of responses to this challenge and shared experience. The exhibit features paintings, sculpture, photography, cut-paper drawings, and poetry, all reflecting upon end-of-life compassion and the subsequent confrontation with loss.

The art exhibit’s title, “Gone From My Sight," is taken from a 1904 poem by Luther F. Beecher that is frequently reprinted as part of hospice literature to help both individuals in hospice and their families, Irons explained. Beecher’s well-known lines describe a ship sailing from sight and the feeling of watching the ship on the horizon at the moment it slips out of view.

“Beecher's poem, which has helped many individuals and families face the inevitability of death, reminds us that within death there is a shift, a change, from one state to another,” Irons said. “None of us know what that really means, and the artists in this exhibition turn to creative expression to look more deeply into this question, wrestling with death's closeness to all of our lives by bringing beauty and compassion into the world along with pain and doubt.” 

The UNE Art Galleries in Portland and Biddeford that Irons directs were recently recognized as one of the top Maine galleries on Maine Media Group's "Best of the 207" list this year. 

“We strive to provide thought-provoking, exceptionally installed professional artwork by regional and national artists, with a special eye on thematizing UNE academics. Free to the public and with programming year-round, we value the Maine arts community's participation as well as that of the UNE community,” Irons said of the recent honor.

A reception for “Gone From My Sight” will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Friday, March 6, in the gallery, located on UNE’s Portland Campus for the Health Sciences at 716 Stevens Ave. in Portland. The gallery is otherwise open Thursday to Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. or by appointment. 

For more information, contact Hilary at hirons@une.edu.