The Cameron Art Museum (CAM) State of the Art / Art of the State (SOTA) Exhibition was inspired by famed curator Walter Hopps. Hopps unique approach provides participating artists opportunity to meet a significant curator working in the field of Contemporary Art. This year’s CAM SOTA curators are Alejo Benedetti from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Dr. Maia Nuku from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Michael Rooks from the High Museum of Art Atlanta.
About Free Flight
Free Flight is a 36 x 36-inch Mixed Media Acrylic Abstract Painting created December 18, 2020 by Liz Morton. It depicts organic imaginings with transparent views rare in acrylic paintings. Dr. Maia Nuku was impressed with Free Flight’s cosmological feel and the movement of color from transparent to opaque appearing as stretched organic matter with veins and pattern.
About Dr. Maia Nuku
Born in London of English and Māori (Ngai Tai) descent, Maia Nuku is Curator for the Arts of Oceania at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Maia’s doctoral research focused on eighteenth century collections of Polynesian art, and she completed two post-doctoral fellowships at Cambridge University (2008-2014) in England as part of an international research team exploring Oceanic art collections in European institutions in France, Spain, the Netherlands and Russia. Researching the collections alongside Pacific artists, practitioners and scholars, the work was collaborative and sought to create access to these collections both in the physical and digital domains. During her time at the Met, Maia has evolved a curatorial approach that centers indigenous Pacific perspectives, grounding the presentation of visual arts from Oceania in the unique cosmological connections that make art from the region so compelling. Her most recent exhibition Atea: Nature and Divinity in Polynesian Art (2018 – 2019) explored the close material and genealogical relationships that bind Polynesian islanders with the natural world. She is currently working on a major reinstallation of the Oceania galleries that will reimagine the collection for 21stcentury audiences and animate the galleries with Pacific voices.
About Cameron Art Museum
Cameron Art Museum provides a cultural gathering place that enriches the lives of museum visitors and the community through high-quality exhibitions, lifelong learning in the arts, dynamic public programs, and stewardship and interpretation of the collection. CAM’s four core values: commitment to community, to lifelong learning in the arts, to support of artists, and to collecting, preserving, documenting and interpreting a permanent collection of art. The museum has been a collecting institution since inception, with approximately 4,000 objects in the permanent collection, with a primary and growing focus on modern art. The collection includes work by artists of national and international significance, used in changing thematic exhibitions, loan exhibitions, and for educational purposes. Cameron Art Museum is a non-profit fully reliant on the generosity of its donors. For more information visit the museum’s website.
Free Flight is on view in the SOTA exhibit at Cameron Art Museum Wilmington, NC. Opening April 9, 2022, closing September 13, 2022 !!! Extended till October 9, 2022 !!!
Cameron Art Museum
3201 South 17th Street
Wilmington, North Carolina 28412
Phone: (910) 395-5999