The Charles Danforth Gallery

The University of Maine at Augusta is proud to present the 2023 UMA Senior Thesis Exhibition: Ouroboros and Ostinato featuring student artists Tayla Knapp and Courtney Harmon. The exhibition explores the processes of the body and the mind in both psychological and physical processes of change. Knapp’s portion of the exhibition, Ouroboros, centers metamorphosis through fluent line that bridges anatomical studies with graphic storytelling, while Harmon’s Ostinato translates the creative influence of music on the mind and psyche into three-dimensional paintings that bridge musical and visual experience through form and metaphor. 

Ouroboros and Ostinato’s subjects and forms reflect circular themes of music and the body. Knapp’s work addresses the outward surreal metamorphosis of the body through life to death, while Harmon’s opens onto the creative interior workings of the mind during embodied experiences of music. Knapp’s graphic and illustrative approach, and Harmon’s circular canvases and multimedia 3D sculptural elements play on the beauty in the sometimes macabre or imperfect cycles that, in the space of the gallery, open onto the nearly limitless creative possibilities through which our bodies and minds circulate.