The Zillman Art Museum - University of Maine, located at 40 Harlow Street in Bangor, ME, opens new Winter Exhibitions.

ZAM is open Tuesday-Saturday from 10 am - 5 pm and brings modern and contemporary art to the region, presenting approximately 21 original exhibitions each year.

Admission to the Zillman Art Museum is free in 2025 thanks to the generosity of Birchbrook.

JOELLYN T. DUESBERRY: MOMENTS IN PLACE
JANUARY 17 - APRIL 19, 2025

Moments in Place features 23 works by noted landscape painter, Joellyn T. Duesberry (1944-2016). The exhibition features works that were inspired by distinct locations in Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and New York. DueSberry’s images were often initially realized en plein air and then finished in the studio. These selected works are part of a recent gift to the Zillman Art Museum and are on display for the first time in this exhibition.

Duesberry created a stunning assortment of monotypes, which often informed compositional and palette choices in her larger oil on canvas works. The monotypes embody an unlabored approach characterized by spirited gestural brushstrokes and vivid color combinations. In contrast to the more detailed landscapes, they exude a freshness while the imagery at times borders on abstraction.

Amongst Duesberry’s assortment of picturesque landscapes is an intentional outlier, First Pairing of Elephant Graveyard and Memory Time-Lapse, 2002. This deeply personal and emotionally charged split composition depicts an elephant graveyard on the left side that the artist encountered in Kenya, while on the right side she captures the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 tragic attack on the World Trade Center. For six months prior to 9/11, Duesberry painted on the 91st floor of the North Tower of World Trade Center in conjunction with an artist grant program. Duesberry stated that she juxtaposed these two very different graveyards, “simultaneously and side-by-side, in a studio, haunted until the horror was expressed outside my nightmare-cursed self.”

Duesberry’s works are represented in numerous collections including the Denver Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smith College Museum, Phoenix Art Museum, and Yale University.
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CLAUDIA OLDS GOLDIE: FLY AWAY HOME
JANUARY 17 - MAY 3, 2025

The Zillman Art Museum is delighted to present Fly Away Home, a fantastical menagerie of Claudia Olds Goldie’s sculpted figures. The sculptures are constructed from slabs of white stoneware that are formed into hollow cylinders, shaped from the inside and out, then finely modeled to create their figurative details. The artist then covers the surfaces with intricate graphite pencil drawings or layers of graphite powder to produce a rich, silvery finish. Olds Goldie’s figures capture strength in stillness and a powerful sense of determination. Considerable emotion is portrayed on the faces of the characters and conveys a push and pull between reality and dreaminess.  

Olds Goldie’s series of heads represents an intersection between realism, fantasy, and irony. The faces portray individuals with aspirations and anxieties and offer a stylistic nod to the history and culture of portrait sculpture. Since the artist does not work from live models, she is free to employ an intuitive and inventive process that allows the personality of each head and figure to reveal itself as she manipulates the clay.  

Olds Goldie explores pattern and tone with her installation piece In Concert. By layering graphite designs she creates dimension through divergent motifs. The arrangement of the orbs is unified by shape and form and their abundance creates a dynamic display. These non-figurative pieces reveal the patterns of rhythmic movement through an innovative use of design.
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YO AHN HAN: SCULPTED DREAMSCAPE
JANUARY 17 - MAY 3, 2025

Sculpted Dreamscape showcases the intricate imagery of Boston-based artist YoAhn Han. Through his use of stratified mixed-media, Han explores concepts of life and death depicting human bodies and flora and their metaphorical meanings. The artist superimposes various materials to create these artworks; gouache, watercolors, color pencils, Flashe, ink, and precisely cut Yupo paper illustrate images that demand close consideration. In Sound of Spring delicate flowers mingle with a torso and an outstretched hand. Shades of blue and purple evoke an aquatic environment that is balanced by the warmth of the flaxen flecks.  
 
Han attributes his creative process to living with cerebral arteriovenous malformation - a lifelong medical condition where one may experience seizures. Han explains his artistic process as, “the attempt to control chaos and the seemingly uncontrollable quality of the body that I live with.” Han’s work investigates the “paradoxical union of life and death.”
 
Chrysanthemums appear in many of the artist’s works. Korean-born Han states, “this flower represents the promise of life when it blooms, it is also used at funerals in Korea and therefore is associated with the sorrow of everlasting sleep.” The reconfigured bodies and floral shapes represent the juxtaposition of pain and pleasure – a fundamental concept that influences Han in his art and life.
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