ON VIEW
April 18 – 16, 2025
May 8 – 17, 2025

OPENING RECEPTIONS
Friday, April 18, 5 – 7 pm
Thursday, May 8, 5 – 7 pm

Carmen J. Hamilton


Carmen Hamilton makes drawings that infuse everyday settings with imaginative elements. Born in rural Indiana, she grew up surrounded by a landscape which shaped her imagination and continues to inform the work. She earned her BFA at Indiana University-Fort Wayne, and her MFA at Maine College of Art & Design in Portland, Maine.


The drawings that make up Midwestern Myth are informed and inspired by the artistic and literary genre of magical realism and the style of midwest regionalism. Each meticulously rendered scene exists in the space between real and imagined, attempting to pause time, to live in and to closely examine the mystery that occurs at this intersection. Through these drawings, set in ostensibly mundane landscapes, I explore our complicated relationships with the natural world, our history, and our own memory. Challenging preconceptions and acknowledging the complexity of places, people, and stories that are often overlooked or oversimplified, this series invites viewers to reconsider their relationship with the world around them, and the one within their own imaginations.

The MFA Thesis Exhibitions for the Class of 2025 incorporate a range of making practices unified by the overwhelming concerns these students have for their environment, their communities, their families, and their own wellbeing. With an emphasis on the personal, and at times the anecdotal, these 17 artists make a variety of contributions in the form of ceramics, drawings, paintings, photographs, poems, prints, sculptures, sound and video installations, and textiles. The nature of their work and research demonstrates the caliber and cultural relevance of Maine College of Art & Design’s Masters in Fine Arts in Studio Art program.