Immersive Installation by Ellis-Beauregard Fellowship Winners, Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B. Nguyen at CMCA

Photo by Dave Clough.

Rockland, ME — The Center for Maine Contemporary Art, in partnership with the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, is presenting a large-scale, immersive installation, “Hubris Atë Nemesis,” by artists Wade Kavanaugh (Bethel, ME) and Stephen B. Nguyen (Portland, ME). The installation will be on view through June 16, 2019. 
 
Kavanaugh and Nguyen were selected as the first recipients of the highly competitive Ellis-Beauregard Fellowship Award from a pool of more than 200 applicants by jurors Jeffrey Peabody, Director, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York City, and Alison de Lima Green, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas. As part of the award, the recipients receive a solo exhibition at CMCA.
 
Working as collaborators for more than a decade, Kavanaugh and Nguyen have distinguished themselves with an approach to installation work that is highly inventive, immersive, and fully in command of their materials. For their exhibition in the main gallery at CMCA, the artists have created an environment that draws inspiration from the Maine landscape. Kavanaugh says, “Our current idea came from a visit to the Homer studio, partly from the sea, but more from the landforms along the water’s edge.”
 
The Ellis-Beauregard Fellowship Award, which provides a $25,000 stipend, reflects the vision of artists David Ellis and Joan Beauregard to support Maine artists with the precious gift of time, and to encourage, expand and sustain the courageous and imaginative dialogue that is fundamental to the arts.
 
In keeping with the award’s support of new, experimental work, Kavanaugh and Nguyen used only wood in their installation at CMCA, a departure from their previous installations, which were constructed primarily with paper. A second departure was the incorporation of a pathway through the piece as an active element.
 
“Our goal was to find a way to translate the visual language we have developed in paper to a new material,” say the artists, “but the impact of incorporating the pathway into the work was a surprise." Typically, the viewer makes contact with the gallery floor when navigating through Kavanaugh's and Nguyen's previous installations, but at CMCA the path contributes to the experience of the work as a whole.

The viewer is made aware of the movement of the artwork through their own movement over the undulating boardwalk. By unifying this relationship between the ‘path’ and the ‘piece,’ the viewer is completely immersed in the work, removing the layer of separation between art and viewer.
 
The title of the installation, “Hubris Atë Nemesis,” recalls the narrative arc of Greek Tragedies, in which Hubris, characterized as an arrogant confidence, transforms to Atë, a ruinous folly or madness, then ultimately to Nemesis, a force of retribution that resets the natural order. Like many paintings of the Maine coast, the artists hope their installation “captures a moment of suspense in a dynamic system—a snapshot with an uncertain future—and that it appears to be unwritten what the restored natural order should or might become.”

The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation and CMCA will partner again in 2020 to present the work of artist Erin Johnson, recipient of this year's Fellowship Award. Johnson is noted for her video and sound pieces, performances, and social practice works.