ON VIEW
May 7 – 16, 2026
OPENING RECEPTION
Thursday, May 7, 5 – 7 pm
May 7 – 16, 2026
OPENING RECEPTION
Thursday, May 7, 5 – 7 pm
Dylan Ouellette
@Dylan_is_kiln_itDylan Ouellette is a ceramic artist based in Maine. In 2024, he earned his BFA from the University of Maine at Presque Isle and is currently pursuing his MFA at the Maine College of Art and Design. Dylan has exhibited work at LightsOut Gallery in Norway, ME, Common Gallery in Presque Isle, ME, and Waterfall Arts Center in Belfast, ME. He is preparing for a solo exhibition abroad at the Saint John Arts Centre in Canada in 2027.
In 2020 and 2024, Dylan received grant funding from the Maine Arts Commission. Dylan currently serves as a board member of the Wintergreen Arts Center. In collaboration with Wintergreen and the University of Maine at Presque Isle, he revived the now annual Empty Bowls fundraiser in 2025 after a seven-year hiatus.
Since 2024, he has served as instructor of ceramics, sculpture, and foundations at the University of Maine at Presque Isle.
Hunger is biological. It is an innate physical and cognitive response to the conditions of the body. Food is a universal conduit for understanding reality and through this I explore the multidimensionalization of an identity driven by eating. My work explores food narratives through clay which rematerializes its physicality to explore ideas of eating and self. The tension between the material and immaterial oscillates between representation and abstraction; these works employ form and surface as tools for narration.
Combining wheel-thrown and hand-built forms, food facsimiles and surreal depictions of self blur the lines between tool and object, between hunger and humor. Utilizing a refrigerator as a relational entrypoint it becomes a mouth, a daily site for navigating the discourse between object and self. The sculptures and refrigerator work together to create a place to learn and transform our experiences surrounding food.
Through the making process, the immaterial idea of food has merged with an inedible form to transform eating into a cognitive response, redirecting how we think about food and its place in building identity.
The MFA Thesis Exhibition for the Class of 2026 incorporates a range of making practices spanning themes including the natural and built environments, the uncanny, the everyday, health, grief, and personal and cultural histories. With an emphasis on both the personal and the global, these nine artists make a variety of contributions through ceramics, drawings, photography, prints, sculptures, and sound and video installations. The nature of their work and research demonstrates the caliber and cultural relevance of MECA&D’s MFA Studio Art program.
Institute of Contemporary Art
at Maine College of Art & Design
522 Congress St. Portland, ME 04101
Gallery Hours:
Wed–Sun, 11:00am–5:00pm,
Thursday, 11:00am–7:00pm