Scavenger,” a Tyrannosaurus Rex made by Mike Libby from over 400 miniature manmade objects, scaled in relation to the size of the dinosaur. Submitted photo
FARMINGTON — The UMF Art Gallery plans to present “Agreeable Nonsense,” by multi-disciplinary artist Mike Libby as its next featured exhibit from Oct. 18 through Nov. 20, at 246 Main St. A public reception is set for 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20.
Libby turns his lens on the consumerist role of materials in ecological, architectural, and topiary forms. He studies the off-center and perpendicular relationships between nature, culture, matter, artifice, and autobiography through his idiosyncratic approaches to sculpture, drawing, and collage.
With such abundance and variety of materials in the world, Libby selects ingredients from both public and personal sources and experiences (hikes, street debris, flotsam and jetsam) for their raw immediacy. Specific materials, altered with calculated detail and process, underscore the meaning beyond the form alone.
Libby revels in the process of making, whether it be adapting one thing into another, or building from scratch; he believes the work itself is interested in what it can be. The materials he chooses and the process of their transformation, orbit, catalyze and support each work’s starting impulse. The materials and process inform the reading of the work as much as the physical thing does, and they need not be synchronous for this to occur. In fact, Libby asserts, the less they have in common, the more interesting things seem to become.
Gallery hours are noon-4 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays, and by appointment.
For more information, email maline@maine.edu or call 207-778-1062.
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