One of Five International Competitors Will Design Public Art Project at Sprague Energy Tank Farm in South Portland

PORTLAND, Maine -- Aug. 13, 2008 -- The Maine Center for Creativity (MCC), a Maine-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting the growth of the arts and creative industries in Maine, has announced the five finalists for its Art All Around(TM) international design competition. The multinational group includes two collaborative teams. Each finalist/team has won up to $10,000, including the cost of travel to Portland for the final leg of the competition. An additional $20,000 will go to the eventual winner, whose design will be painted on some of the most prominent oil tanks at the Sprague Energy tank farm in South Portland. The finalists were announced at an Aug. 12 event at the Wyndham Portland Airport Hotel in South Portland.

MCC created Art All Around, one of Maine's largest public art projects to date, to highlight Maine's thriving creative economy and exceptional quality of life. The organization received 560 design entries from around the globe, including China, Taiwan, Italy, Australia and Thailand, as well as towns such as Greenville, Bridgton and Whitefield in Maine. Between the March 25 competition kickoff and the June 25 deadline, entries poured in from 73 countries and nearly every U.S. state. A nine-person panel of international judges selected the finalists in an anonymous judging process. For further details on the competition, visit www.artallaround.com.

"The talented artists chosen as finalists represent several countries and a wide range of backgrounds," said Jean Maginnis, executive director, Maine Center for Creativity. "They each brought unique and original vision to the competition while displaying a clear understanding of the importance of this public art project and its role as a symbol of Maine's thriving creative community."

The five Art All Around finalists are*:

* Catherine Callahan and Bret LeBleu of South Portland
* Holger Friese of Berlin
* Jaime Gili of London
* Nicole Langille of Columbus, Ohio
* Bo Nathan Newsome of Durham, N.C., and Sara Lambert Bloom of South Portland

*See finalist biographies below.

Members of the public who would like to see the finalists present their designs are invited to an artist talk and unveiling set for Thursday, Aug. 14, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., at University College at Rockland, Breakwater Building, 91 Camden St., Suite 402, Rockland.

"We want to thank everyone who submitted a design for Art All Around," said Maginnis. "There were so many interesting and imaginative entries -- it was tremendously challenging for the judges to choose just five. We greatly enjoyed seeing the ideas and reading the comments of creative people from all over the world."

Finalist Biographies and Statements
* Catherine Callahan of South Portland holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from Cornell University and a bachelor's degree from McGill University. She has been a designer for several landscape architecture firms and recently launched her own design firm, Blue Landscape. Callahan's work has been published in the Journal of Landscape Architecture and Reconsidering Concrete Atlantis. An accomplished painter and installation artist, she has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions and received grants and awards including the Cornell Council on the Arts Individual Artist Award and the Special Opportunity Stipend from the New York Foundation on the Arts. She is founder of the Byrdcliffe Outdoor Arts Exhibition at the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony and cofounder of the Arts Society of Kingston, both in New York.

Bret LeBleu of South Portland is a graduate of Cornell University's Master of Landscape Architecture program and holds a bachelor's degree in imaging science from Rochester Institute of Technology. He has worked in landscape design roles at firms including Gawron Turgeon Architects, Richardson & Associates and Trowbridge & Wolf LLP. A former artist's assistant at SUNY Purchase's Neuberger Museum, LeBleu was a 2004 recipient of the Edna Sussman Environmental Grant for his work on the Cayuga Waterfront Trail in Ithaca, N.Y.

"When we heard about the competition, we were excited by the potential of using the monumental oil tanks as a canvas and the opportunity to use an industrial vocabulary to create public art on such a large scale. We have always been intrigued by Portland's waterfront, of which the oil tanks are an integral part."
-- Catherine Callahan and Bret LeBleu

* Holger Friese of Berlin became a professional photographer in 1990. Later, he worked as assistant director of the International New Jazz Festival in Moers, Germany, before completing his undergraduate studies in visual communication at the University of Applied Sciences Aachen. In his site-specific artwork, Friese questions social processes and the effects of a media-driven society. His public art projects in Berlin, such as Zeichen/Sign (2004) and Black and White (2007), play with the readability of digital content in public areas. A former lecturer on the multimedia art faculty at the University of Applied Sciences Salzburg, Friese has participated in exhibitions including documenta X and net.condition in Germany and Art Meets Media: Adventures in Perception in Japan. He has also been featured in many publications. Friese is the founder of FROZEN_BULL artproduction and continues to develop Internet-based systems and tools.

"I've had the idea for my design for a long time. I studied digital images as a student, and that was the starting point -- using image information to take familiar images to the abstract. This project was the first opportunity to get it out of the computer and into the real world."
-- Holger Friese

* Jaime Gili of London began his art studies in his native Caracas, Venezuela, in 1988. After moving to Spain, he enrolled at the University of Barcelona and received a bachelor's degree and doctorate in fine arts. He has also studied in Lisbon, Paris, Berlin and London. Gili has participated in dozens of solo and group exhibitions in countries including Mexico, Venezuela, Australia, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. His work appears in public collections at Saatchi Gallery and Christie's Contemporary in London, as well as Banco Mercantil in Caracas, L'Oreal in Madrid and the University of Essex. Gili has been featured in publications such as Artforum, ArtPapers, Time Out London and The Guardian. He has written more than 30 pieces for a variety of periodicals, and has worked as London correspondent for LAPIZ, a Madrid-based arts magazine.

"I've been influenced by many artists from 20th Century Venezuelan modernism. Some of the most important artists from that time did large-scale projects that I have always admired. The challenge of the scale and grandeur of the site in Portland and of joining those artists' achievements is what attracted me to this project."
-- Jaime Gili

* Nicole Langille of Columbus, Ohio, received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture from Boston University, where she was awarded the William Randolph Hearst Fellowship from the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colo. She later moved to New York City, where she participated in exhibits in venues including the Queens Museum of Art in Queens, N.Y. After relocating to the West Coast, she changed course from sculpture to installation, completing site-specific designs for spaces such as the Lake Washington United Methodist Church in Kirkland, Wash. Langille recently began work on her Master of Fine Arts in painting and drawing at The Ohio State University. The environment and the human relationship to it is the primary interest of her drawings, installations and public interventions.

"The Art All Around project caught my attention for a variety of reasons, the most prominent of which was the complex nature of the site. It is teeming with contrasting relationships from the conceptual to the physical. The Sprague tank farm represents a challenging and compelling confluence of energies -- rich and dynamic material for any artist."
-- Nicole Langille

* Bo Nathan Newsome of Durham, N.C., is an oboist, composer and educator in the Triangle region of North Carolina. A 2005 Composer Fellowship recipient of the North Carolina Arts Council, he has received commissions from the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science, Mallarme Chamber Players and the Exploris children's museum. Newsome has created five scores for documentary productions for North Carolina Public Television, several in collaboration with Preservation North Carolina. A passionate advocate for creative education, he has developed curriculum-based programs for the symphonies in Charlotte and Raleigh. He currently performs with Mallarme Chamber Players and the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, and teaches at Duke University and East Carolina University.

"The Art All Around project inspired me to think of ways to illuminate this magnificent state. My hope is that our project inspires the community of Maine and the world beyond in creative and collaborative ways. And, in turn, that it might generate an ongoing cycle of new images and ideas long into the future."
-- Bo Nathan Newsome

Sara Lambert Bloom of South Portland spent a 35-year career as a professional oboist, teacher, chamber music coach and advisor, as well as a published author, essayist and archivist. Currently, she has established a second career as a residential and commercial mortgage broker. Bloom has continued to support the arts by bringing collaborative residencies to schools as codirector of Maine Initiative for Creative and Collaborative Expression (MICE!), serving on the advisory committee made up of former trustees of Chamber Music America. She recently accepted the reappointment by Maine Governor John Baldacci to represent the performing arts on the Maine Tourism Commission through 2012. Her other projects include archiving the materials of her late husband, celebrated oboist Robert Bloom.

"We are thrilled to participate in this project -- an opportunity to tell the story of an extraordinary state that has nurtured, inspired and sustained generations over the centuries and continues to offer a vibrant world of beauty and quality of life to its citizens and visitors."
-- Sara Lambert Bloom

In late September, the judges will select one winner whose design will be applied to the tanks. Professional contractors will paint the winning artwork on the tops and sides of eight tanks and the tops of an additional eight starting in fall 2008. Competition organizers expect the painting to be complete in 2011, if weather permits.

About The Maine Center for Creativity
The Maine Center for Creativity (MCC) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) led by a volunteer board of directors. Founded in May 2005, MCC is committed to attracting companies to Maine by developing projects and programs that support the growth of creative industries and the arts. Among its educational and arts-related projects, MCC is organizing Art All Around(TM), an international design competition to paint the Sprague Energy tanks in South Portland. For more information, please visit www.mainecenterforcreativity.org.

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