February 2 - 26, 2012
Opening reception: Thursday, February 2, 5:00 - 8:00pm
Gallery will also be open First Friday from noon to 8 p.m.

"Artifacts & Particles"  

Portland Photographers
Caleb Charland and Peter Gruner Shellenberger

"Artifacts & Particles," features the inventive and exploratory photographic work of Caleb Charland and Peter Gruner Shellenberger. While both artists feature several distinctive individual works of their own, they also offer a large and significant collaborative installation of silver gelatin photographs.

The two met less than two years ago when Charland, a young Bangor native with a burgeoning international career, came to the Maine College of Art as an artist in residence. He and Shellenberger, a faculty member since 2001, realized that their instincts for breaking new ground and alternative ways of creating photographs were similar in many ways. Both look to unusual materials and techniques to create the content of their work. Understanding that photography literally means writing with light, Charland, for example, may place a sparkler in a metronome. As the the cinders fly through time and space, he intervenes by blocking the camera's lens in rhythm to such classic tunes as "When the Levee Breaks" to create broken beats of light. Shellenberger often prefers using uranium (radiation and not light) as his mode for exposing light sensitive material for up to 45 days. 

For their first collaboration presented here, both artists created a significant number of 8" x 10" silver gelatin prints in their respective studios at MECA, then swapped their initial efforts for the other to alter however he wished. Shellenberger reports, "This process of sharing ideas has delighted us both. No matter what we may do, we have been surprised by how light goes its own way. Somehow, our pushing light sets it free.

Charland and Shellenberger will discuss their work at the Addison Woolley Gallery in a free public talk at 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 12 at 2 p.m. Snow date will be rescheduled for February 26, the final day of the exhibition.

Peter Gruner Shellenberger, "Room Five Motel Six"
Peter Gruner Shellenberger, "#3 (more than a feeling)"		Peter Gruner Shellenberger, "Autoradiograph Five" (uranium/radiation exposure forty-five days)
Caleb Charland, "Phosphorus and Fishbowl"
Caleb Charland, "Light Sphere With My Right Arm and Cigarette Lighter"		Caleb Charland, "Breakbeat with Sparkler in Metronome (When the Levee Breaks)"