Opening Reception Monday, Dec. 11, 2023 2 p.m.
Danforth Art Gallery, UMA Augusta Campus
Opening Monday, December 11 at 2 p.m. in the Charles Danforth Gallery at UMA, the University of Maine at Augusta is proud to present “Wham! Bang! Pow!: Work from UMA’s Graphic Storytellers.” The exhibition features two sets of student projects from the Fall 2023 ART/ENG/INT 330 UMA’s Wham! Bang! Pow! Graphic Storytelling in Form and Practice class. Co-taught by Professor of Art Peter Precourt and Professor of English Lisa Botshon, this 6-credit interdisciplinary course involves reading, discussion, research, making, critique, and collaboration. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
“Graphic storytelling” is a capacious concept that involves words and images to tell a story. Over the course of this fall, Wham! students experimented with different mediums and strategies in order to tell their own stories, some of which are featured in this show.
Using their skills developed over the semester, the class also created a collaborative sequential art project based on Karen Russell’s short story “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” (2006), which is featured in the other half of the gallery. Each student took on two or more roles in order to render this story into a wall-sized multi-panel graphic narrative. They adapted the text, scripted, storyboarded, edited, illustrated, colored, lettered, and installed the project.
Wham! Bang! Pow! helps students become better critical thinkers, researchers, problem solvers, and creators who are prepared to work with others, challenge themselves to learn new skills, and make germane connections. This show is a testament to our students’ incredible abilities.
Students contributing to the exhibition are: Emily Allen, Fatima Babar, Morgan Cafferata, Barbara Drennen, Julia Dry, Des Dumais, Camryn Elliott-Proctor, Jada Gastia, Marguerite Jacques, Jeff McKay, Sullivan O’Keeffe, Sophia Reyes, Natalie Rohman, Jared Winslow, and Jen Worthing.
Event Information
Opening reception for “Wham! Bang! Pow!: Work from UMA’s Graphic Storytellers”
Monday, December 11 at 2 p.m. ET
Charles Danforth Gallery, University of Maine at Augusta, 46 University Drive, Augusta, ME 04330, The Danforth Gallery is located inside Jewett Hall on the Augusta Campus
Free and open to the public.
The Charles Danforth Gallery at the University of Maine at Augusta
Named after a renowned artist and former faculty member at the University of Maine at Augusta, the Charles Danforth Gallery serves the UMA campus and the wider community of central Maine with rotating contemporary art exhibitions. Conceived as a living classroom, and used for lectures and other events, the gallery is a site for faculty, students, alumni and community members to engage with ideas, forms, and conversations in art. The gallery is open during regular business hours from September through May.
UMA transforms the lives of students of every age and background across the State of Maine and beyond through access to high-quality distance and on-site education, excellence in student support, civic engagement, and professional and liberal arts programs.