Today’s guests are the internationally recognized visual artist and photographer, John Paul Caponigro, and Suzette McAvoy, the executive director and chief curator at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art.
Love Maine Radio #318: John Paul Caponigro and Suzette McAvoy
Guests
Suzette McAvoy, executive director at the CMCA
Suzette McAvoy has served as executive director and chief curator at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art since September 2010. She spearheaded the institution’s recent $5.2 million capital campaign and relocation to a newly constructed building, designed by internationally known architect Toshiko Mori, which opened in Rockland, Maine, on June 26, 2016. McAvoy previously served for 12 years as chief curator of the Farnsworth Art Museum and has more than 30 years’ experience in the art and museum field. She has lectured and written extensively on the art and artists of Maine, and has organized national traveling exhibitions of the work of Louise Nevelson, Alex Katz, Kenneth Noland, Lois Dodd, Karl Schrag, and Alan Magee. Additionally, she has organized recent exhibitions of the work of Jonathan Borofsky, Richard Van Buren, Inka Essenhigh, David Driskell, Katherine Bradford, and Steve Mumford, among others. She is currently working on upcoming exhibitions with John Walker, William Wegman, and Ann Craven. Prior to moving to Maine, McAvoy was Director of the University of Rhode Island Art Galleries in Kingston, Rhode Island, and also worked at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, and the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History. She has served as adjunct professor of museum studies at the University of Maine, and as a lecturer for the Smithsonian Journeys Program. She has also been an arts writer for Maine Home and Design magazine and an art advisor to private collectors. She received a BA in art history from Hobart and William Smith College in Geneva, New York, and an MA in museum studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program at State University of New York. She lives in Belfast, Maine.
John Paul Caponigro, visual artist
John Paul Caponigro is a prominent visual artist working with digital media. His art has been exhibited internationally and purchased by numerous private and public collections including Princeton University, the Estée Lauder collection, and Smithsonian. Caponigro combines his background in painting with traditional and alternative photographic processes using state-of-the-art digital technology. A form of environmental art in virtual space, his work is about the perception of nature and the nature of perception. His life’s work is both a call to connection with nature and a call for conscientious creative interaction with our environment during a time of rapid change. He has lectured extensively at conferences, universities, and museums in venues as diverse as Photoshop World, Google, and TEDx. He leads seminars and workshops around the globe. His work has been published widely in numerous periodicals and books including Art News and The Ansel Adams Guide. Author of the video training series “R/Evolution” and the book Adobe Photoshop Master Class, he has also been a contributing editor to a variety of magazines and websites including Camera Arts, Digital Photo Pro, HuffPost, and Apple. He is a member of the Photoshop Hall of Fame, an Epson Stylus Pro, and an X-Rite Coloratti. His clients include Adobe, Apple, Canon, Epson, Kodak, and Sony.