OverUnder Artist Conversation

The University of Southern Maine is thrilled to host an artist conversation for OverUnder, an exhibition featuring work by artists Rachel Gloria Adams and Rachel Sperry. The show features work rooted in familial representation created via fiber-derived techniques. Weaving and stitching have an inherent ability to help process memory. In the context of their respective practices, the artists examine themes of domesticity, loss, childhood, and parenthood.

Rachel Gloria Adams is a multidisciplinary artist living in Portland, Maine. Adams has developed a vibrant, graphic pattern-based visual language filled with references to the natural world that possesses an heirloom quality. Her work takes form by way of quilting, painting, design, and murals. Adams moved to Maine in 2005 to pursue her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maine College of Art and Design. She has gone on to exhibit artwork at the Portland Museum of Art, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Notch8 Gallery, and Dowling Walsh. Her work has been acquired by the Portland Museum of Art, Farnsworth Museum, as well as private collections. She has attended residencies at Surfpoint, Speedwell, Pace House, and is an Indigo Arts Alliance David C Driscoll Fellow. In addition to her studio practice, Adams has been commissioned to create murals for businesses as well as institutions, including the Children’s Museum of Portland, Worcester Art Museum, and Farnsworth Museum.

Rachel Sperry was born in New York City in 1989 and grew up throughout New England before settling in Portland, Maine, where she lives with two Karls (one her son, the other her husband) and a dog named Jenny. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking from Washington University in St. Louis in 2013. In 2014, Sperry founded her creative studio, NUUFORM, which has evolved over the years to encompass a wide-ranging practice including knitwear, editorial commissions, photography, and studio-based work. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Italy and across the United States, and has been featured in publications such as Mother Tongue, The New York Times Opinion, Cake Zine and Out of Eden’s.