A Welcome from UMF President Kate Foster

Universities are nothing if not places of fermentation, that state of turbulent balance sparking ideas and charging our world.  Mix music with math, add athletics and a dash of development, fold in facilities and French, combine with community and curriculum, and sift with science and students.  Each concoction satisfies anew.

It is thus fitting that the University of Maine at Farmington Art Gallery inaugurates its 2014-15 season with a show by Jung Hur, an artist and master chef whose work rests in and manifests fermentation.  In the colors, textures, flavors, and motifs of his paintings and dishes, Hur demands our attention to alchemic balance, not too bitter, not too smooth, parts meaningfully in relationship. Spot in every savory offering Hur’s signature keyhole and key, rendered singularly or in combination, each needing the other to fulfill its purpose.  Hur thus represents the forces of yin and yang—his philosophical foundations—and reminds us how delicious great art can be.

Hur’s show likewise epitomizes the mission of the UMF Art Gallery, a university-based teaching gallery that brings contemporary art and artists to campus and the greater Farmington community in western Maine.  Curated and directed by UMF Associate Professor of Art, Sarah Maline, the gallery has a mission to show “innovative and challenging new work [that] reinforces the academic vision of the university and the UMF Department of Sound, Performance, and Visual Inquiry in celebrating art as a powerful agent of community and cultural identity.” 

Indulge now in the mouthwatering show before you, a marvelous fermentation of brilliant art and curatorial inspiration in a community that relishes both.  

President Kathryn Foster