FARMINGTON, ME (February 16, 2012)—The UMF Art Gallery is pleased to present REAL LIFE—a striking display of photos depicting the lives of Maine people, people who sometimes seem eerily familiar, by photographers Keliy Anderson-Staley and Melonie Bennett. This exhibit runs from Feb. 16–March 11 and is free and open to the public.

REAL LIFE features a collection of images that are emotionally rich, aesthetically challenging and technically superb.
Anderson-Staley’s “Off the Grid” project documents the everyday lives of 30 Maine families living without modern amenities of any kind with beautiful, thought-provoking and wholly memorable images. Her work has received numerous grants and awards including, the 2010 Photo Review Award, The Print Center, Philadelphia, Penn.; the Griffin Prize, Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, Mass.; nomination for the 2011 Santa Fe Prize in Photography; and the 2012 Delta Award, Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Ark.

Bennett is a Maine-born photographer whose moving black and white photographs, depicting the lives of Bennett’s own family and friends, are lush and marvelously crafted. Humorous and poignant all at once, they are a visual pleasure on many levels. Bennett’s award-winning images have been exhibited in New York City galleries and throughout Maine and the Northeast.

This exhibit is sponsored by the UMF Department of Sound, Performance and Visual Inquiry.

The UMF Art Gallery is located at 246 Main St. in Farmington, immediately behind the Admissions Office. The gallery is open noon to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday, during the UMF academic year and by appointment. For more information, or to make special arrangements, please call 207-778-7002, or email Elizabeth Olbert, director of the UMF Art Gallery, at elizabeth.olbert@maine.edu.

More about the UMF Art Gallery

The UMF Art Gallery is a nonprofit professional art space dedicated to bringing contemporary art and artists to campus and the regional community. In its dedication to new art, the gallery reinforces the vision of the UMF Department of Sound, Performance and Visual Inquiry in celebrating art as a powerful agent of social and cultural change and artists as generators of community and cultural identity. The gallery works with local schools to integrate arts programming into their curricula and opens its space to community events and gatherings.

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Media contact: Elizabeth Olbert, director of the UMF Art Gallery, at 207-778-7002, or elizabeth.olbert@maine.edu

EDITOR’S NOTE: Photo can be found at: http://inside.umf.maine.edu/files/2012/02/RP112-044.jpg

Photo Credit: Submitted image

Photo Caption: “Tom Shaving” by Keliy Anderson-Staley