Mayo Street Arts is pleased to present DESCENT-- a group show featuring the work of local artists Amelia Garretson-Persans, Ashley Page, Justine Henry & Lin Snow. The exhibition is a celebration of the descent into winter when the sun sets earlier and all things shadowy and magical appear. 

Join us for the opening reception on Friday, October 7 from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM at Mayo Street Arts with light snacks and libations. 

On view from October 8 through November 18. Gallery hours are on Fridays & Sundays 12:00 PM - 4:00 PM (closed Sunday, October 23) and by appointment. Email katie@mayostreetarts.org  or call 207-879-4629 for more information. 

AMELIA GARRETSON-PERSANS is an interdisciplinary artist based in southern Maine. She received her BFA in Studio Art from Concordia University in Montreal and her MFA from the Maine College of Art in Portland, ME. She has shown work in Maine, New York, Tennessee, Quebec and elsewhere. Her residencies include the Digital Narratives residency at the Banff Centre in Alberta, the Jenny Family Residency in Nova Scotia and the Stephen Pace House in Maine. She is passionate about creative collaboration and community engagement and helped produce dozens of short films by directors with disabilities while at Bomb Diggity Arts (2014-2022) as well as a dynamic slate of public programming. In 2018 she co-created the In Her Kitchen series which partners Maine College of Art & Design students with immigrant chefs from In Her Presence to create visually engaging recipe videos and elevate the voices of immigrant women. She is currently at work on a feature-length, psychedelic art film, based on her experiences in the hospital caring for her child. She lives in South Portland with her family.

ASHLEY PAGE is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Portland, ME. She presently holds a BFA in Sculpture and a Minor in Public Engagement from Maine College of Art (MECA). As a maker, a curator, a woman of color, a community member, a little sister, and a daughter, she creates space for dialogue, representation, intergenerational exchange, and creative expression. She is currently the Studio and Programs Coordinator at Indigo Arts Alliance, where she works within the intersection of art and activism. In spring 2020, she was awarded the Heart and Soul Student Award by Maine Campus Compact for her D.E.I work as a student while at MECA. In 2018 - 2019, she was a Warren Public Engagement Fellow at MECA where she collaboratively developed her artistic philosophy of representation, diversity, equity, and justice. More recently, she was a 2021 Maine Craft Association Apprenticeship recipient with Lissa Hunter serving as her Mentor in sculptural basketry. Her curatorial and studio practice has been seen in the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, The Abyssinian Meeting House, The Portland Museum of Art, Congress Square Park, Able Baker Contemporary, New Systems Exhibitions, and more.

JUSTINE HENRY is a multidisciplinary artist working in the realms of collage, poetry, and sound. She grew up near the New Jersey Pine Barrens and now resides in Portland, Maine. Her education has been circuitous, fragmented, and informal; nurtured on the peripheries and in DIY spaces. A lifelong compulsion to collect and arrange physical objects led her to collage. She is interested in the ability of rearrangement to alter or interrupt visual information and how this process relates to the idea of a collective consciousness— tracing resonances through time and space. These hand-cut pieces are a meditation on patience and intentionality. Justine’s work has appeared virtually as well as in print. Currently, she is writing, researching, and collecting images for a forthcoming zine.

LIN SNOW is a Maine resident who is originally from New Hampshire. She graduated with honors from Maine College of Art with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Illustration. Her work often includes nature to explore identity and even more so: surroundings as people and what they contribute to identity. Using science, biology, and ecology she submerges viewers in the unknown science of the natural world that we all live in. She creates in a wide range of mediums and is always looking toward the next. Lin has been busy with commission-based work; designing logos and illustrations for local clients. She has been participating in and curating exhibitions throughout Maine as well as teaching at Merrymeeting Adult Education. She has been awarded for her art in contexts such as the Presidential Scholarship, Annalee Dolls Scholarship, The MECA Award for Most Innovative, and Most recently: Portland’s Best Themed Holiday Window. She is looking forward to the international EMMA Collaboration Artist Residency in 2022.

Pictured: Justine Henry, Counterbalance, 2019, 8.5" x 11", Paper collage, cardstock (framed), $495