Join us for the opening of You Once Had An Aunt at our Gorham Gallery for the Arts on May 21.
Maine-based artist, curator, and educator Peter Bruun creates work that merges art and storytelling to explore healing, connection, and social justice. His decades in Maryland included a robust studio practice and the founding of Art on Purpose and the New Day Campaign, initiatives known for community impact. After moving to Maine in 2019, he established Studio B, an organization dedicated to socially engaged, community-building arts programs. Bruun’s work has been shown widely, most recently in his 2024 solo exhibition, Each Has Their Grief, at 3S Artspace in Portsmouth, NH. He received the 2025 Opioid Summit Governor’s Award and has completed social engagement residencies in the U.S. and the Middle East.
Even As We Grieve
April 16 – July 31, 2026
Crewe Center for the Arts
111 Bedford St, Portland, Maine
Mon – Fri, 9 am – 5 pm
The University of Southern Maine’s 2026 Artist-in-Residence is Peter Bruun, whose Even As We Grieve project explores how human connection helps us endure and transform experiences of pain, loss, and crisis. Rooted in Bruun’s deeply personal body of work—dozens of drawings and paintings created since the 2014 overdose death of his daughter—the project invites the University and greater Portland communities into a shared space of reflection, storytelling, and creative expression.
While grounded in his own journey through grief, Bruun’s art speaks to universal experiences of devastation, dramatic change, recovery, and the sustaining power of community. During his residency, Bruun will work in partnership with Portland-area nonprofits and University offices whose missions center on care, healing, and belonging. Even as We Grieve will uplift the voices and stories of people navigating loss, addiction, systemic inequity, and the search for connection.
The project will culminate in two exhibitions—opening at the Crewe Art Center in Portland on April 16 and the University Art Gallery in Gorham on May 18—featuring Bruun’s own artwork alongside pieces created by community members. The exhibitions’ content will highlight the lived experiences of immigrant communities, LGBTQ+ individuals, people in recovery, justice-impacted individuals, and those living with grief.
Public programs throughout the spring and summer of 2026 will extend this work beyond the gallery. Pop-up exhibitions, performances, conversations, and community events developed with partner organizations will illuminate how communities of care help us heal when everything falls apart. Even as We Grieve positions art as a means to honor memory, confront hardship, and celebrate connection. Bruun’s residency invites the University and Portland-area communities to participate in this collective act of belonging, rooted in empathy, resilience, and the belief that we build joyful lives of meaning together.
Scenes from the opening reception
You Once Had An Aunt
May 21 – August 22
Gorham Art Gallery
By appointment
This immersive exhibition brings together 100 paintings by Peter Bruun, inspired by the birth of his grandson and the absence of the aunt he will never know. An audio collage of voices weaves through the installation, offering reflections on grief, love, and memory. At the opening reception, representatives from Loose Ends Project and the Center for Grieving Children, whose missions align closely with the spirit of this exhibition, will share their work.
Image at top of page: Peter Bruun, Together (detail, one of 27 panels), 2022-2023. Oil on gessoed panel, 12 x 18 in.
Peter Bruun’s Even As We Grieve project is supported in part by a grant from the Onion Foundation.
