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Ethel H. Blum Gallery
 Something is growing - wild - within College of the Atlantic's Ethel H. Blum Gallery.
It's called "Eden" and it has transformed the Blum Gallery into a multi-media installation that floats somewhere among the biblical parable of the lost paradise, a do-it-yourself garage project and a science fiction fantasy, leaving the visitor pondering human's propensity to tinker with nature. This gallery-turned-greenhouse and grow-room laboratory opens Aug 10 with a talk by the artist at 6 p.m. It runs until Saturday, Sept. 6.
To prepare for Eden, Van Aken has been working with a geneticist to produce his own line of hybrid seeds; he's also been creating an orchard of what he calls "excessively grafted fruit trees."
The initial impulse for the show was to plant a grove of these trees in a town named Eden. Instead, Van Aken, who received one of the Maine Arts Commission's individual artist fellowships this year, is opting for a greenhouse experience inside COA's Blum Gallery, located on Eden Street, in a town formerly known as Eden.
"These hybrid vegetables are a stand in for the way we have come to not only think of nature but the way we seem modify, augment, alter and construct our reality," says Van Aken. "The decision to create these hybrid vegetables and to use nature as a metaphor is very calculated primarily because these forms are so provocative, but it is my intention that this provocation isn't limited to just genetic modification."
Though we tend to equate nature with beauty and truth, Van Aken adds, our idea of nature seems to have changed. "We no longer seem to accept things on their ideal or inherent value but for their effect. So the synthesis and recombination that is obvious in genetically modified produce isn't just limited to fruits and vegetables, but becomes a metaphor for a cultural perception."
Born in Reading Pennsylvania in 1972, Van Aken's work has been recognized nationally and internationally for exposing and unfolding perceptions on such diverse topics as genetic engineering and the psychological impact of media. A Portland, ME resident, and art professor at Syracuse University, Van Aken has also taught at the University of Maine Orono. His work ranges through a variety of media, using subtle humor to challenge the way we experience reality. Recent Maine exhibits include shows at the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport and Portland's Whitney Artworks. In 2009, Van Aken will be having a one-person show at the Farnsworth Museum of Art in Rockland.
"Eden" by Sam Van Aken will be on view from August 10 through Sept. 6, Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call 207-288-5015 ext. 318.
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