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BIDDEFORD, Maine

Christy Bergland's 'The Early Seasons of Great Pond' are on display at UNE

The University of New England hosts "The Early Seasons of Great Pond" by local artist Christy Bergland at UNE's Biddeford Campus Center through June 30.

Born in Maryland and raised in both Maryland and Maine, Bergland continues to live in both residences where she has studios. She paints and draws where she is using traditional material, beginning as works on location which she often reworks over time. Her Maine studio is located on Great Pond which has been a significant external muse throughout her life as an artist.

Personal experience has also had a powerful impact on her art. As a young child, she was hospitalized on an isolation ward with polio. Confined alone with no words to express herself, she was left with lasting images of shadows and light reflections. 

Her job as an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital has also significantly inspired her work. There she helps people visually express and verbalize the visual metaphor and ultimately metabolize basic, essential feeling states. The transformation of these raw emotions, she believes, is a vital ingredient of beauty. 

She is an artist who makes artworks about space and movement in time. "Loss" and "change" are essential muses in the process of finding the visual work in present time. What she hopes emanates from her work is a capacity to stimulate reflection of her perpetual state of transitions, and of the many feelings and thoughts that accompany them in a way that is measured, moving, and mysterious.

Bergland was a guest lecturer in art therapy at UNE this spring. She is connected with The Maine Drawing Project and will be showing "The Late Seasons of Great Pond" at the Saco Museum through mid November.

This exhibition is free and open to the public. The Campus Center hours are Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. For more information, contact Diane Noble at dbmn27@maine.rr.com.

About the University of New England

The University of New England is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.