UMaine Museum of Art announces Keliy Anderson-Staley: Tintype Portraits


  • September 19, 2017

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UMaine Museum of Art announces Fall Exhibition

BANGOR – The University of Maine Museum of Art, located at 40 Harlow Street in downtown Bangor, opens four new exhibitions in September. UMMA is open Tuesday-Saturday from 10 am - 5 pm and brings modern and contemporary art to the region, presenting approximately 12 original exhibitions each year. UMMA’s fall shows open to the public on September 15 and run through December 30, 2017. Admission to the Museum of Art is free in 2017 thanks to the generosity of Deighan Wealth Advisors.

KELIY ANDERSON-STALEY: TINTYPE PORTRAITS
September 15 - December 30, 2017

Houston-based photographer Keliy Anderson-Staley has made thousands of portraits that record the diversity of American faces. The wall installations, arranged in grids, consist of portraits of individuals and couples. The photographer states, “Each individual in this series—identified only by a first name—defiantly asserts his or her selfhood, resisting any imposed or external categorizing system we might bring to these images.” Anderson-Staley’s images exhibit the alluring surfaces and distinctive tonality characteristic of the tintype process. Another unique aspect of her portraits is that some facial features of the subjects are sharp, while others are out of focus. Adding to the drama are the darkened, rounded edges that frame the compositions. Anderson-Staley focuses on individuals from all walks of life and highlights our uniqueness, as well as the interconnectedness of humanity.

Anderson-Staley creates images using the wet-plate collodian tintype process, made with chemistry mixed according to nineteenth-century recipes. She coats blackened aluminum with collodian and then submerges them in silver nitrate to become light sensitive. The portraits are created using a wooden view camera with antique brass lenses. Exposures range between four and 20 seconds and require the sitters to remain motionless. The plates are then developed with ferrous sulfate and fixed with potassium cyanide. Anderson-Staley keeps the history of the medium alive by exploring these early photographic processes, all while creating works that advance photography’s contemporary relevance and discourse.

Admission to the Museum of Art is FREE in 2017 thanks to the generosity of Deighan Wealth Advisors.


 

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Kathryn Jovanelli

40 Harlow Street
Bangor  ME  04401-5102 

207-581-3370
ude.eniam@jnyrhtak
www.umma.maine.edu