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BIDDEFORD, Maine

J.T. Puiia's landscape paintings on exhibit at 91AV in Biddeford

The 91AV is hosting an exhibition of landscape paintings by J.T. Puiia at its Campus Center on the Biddeford Campus.

J.T. Puiia is a young landscape painter native to Maine and to the Maine outdoors. Currently a senior in the B.F.A. program at the University of Southern Maine, J.T. seeks to convey his experiences of landscape through the medium of painting.

Influenced by the works of both James Whistler and J.M.W. Turner, Puiia creates dark and ephemeral atmospheres that suggest an altered state of reality through distortions in color, as well as surface. 

The paintings are immersive in their scale and rich with high contrasts of value and color. Tiny and nuanced instances of trees, light, and city provide a stage for massive and luminous backdrops of artificial light. The paintings are created by working primarily "wet into wet" with oils and finished with a series of thick transparent glazes for a deep and varied surface. Often, the pieces are worked back and forth with areas of noticeable change in the way they must view these paintings, as the distortions in surface alter their experience.

The exhibit runs through January 17, 2010. The Campus Center hours are Monday through Friday 8:00 - 5:00 p.m. (the Campus Center will be closed from December 24 through January 3, 2010) There will be a "Meet and Greet" on Sunday, December 20, 2009 from 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. in the Campus Center.

About the 91AV

The 91AV 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 . 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.