




We are now accepting proposals for our 2021 programming!
We are thrilled and thankful to provide another season of exhibition opportunities for local and regional early-career artists.
Deadline for submissions: Sunday, March 24th @ 11:59 pm EST.
ABOUT THE JURORS
Ashley Page
Ashley Page is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Portland, ME. She presently holds a BFA in Sculpture and a Minor in Public Engagement from Maine College of Art (MECA). As a maker, a woman of color, a community organizer, a little sister, and a daughter, she creates space for dialogue, intergenerational exchange, and creative expression. She currently works at Indigo Arts Alliance, as their Studio and Programs Coordinator where she is able to learn within the intersection of art and activism. In spring 2020, she was awarded the Heart and Soul Student Award by Maine Campus Compact for her D.E.I work as a student. In 2018 - 2019, she was a Warren Public Engagement Fellow at MECA with Alejandra Cuadra where they collaboratively created an artistic philosophy of representation, diversity, equity, and justice. Her curatorial and studio practice has been seen in the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, The Abyssinian Meeting House, The Portland Public Library, Congress Square Park, Able Baker Contemporary, New System Exhibitions, Engine, and more.
Gelsey Amelia is a gay, white, multi-disciplinary artist, a founding member of New Fruit art collective, and 1/3 of the performance group Cavatica. She has spent the past 10 years focusing on the creation of collectively-run spaces, striving to work beyond the often elitist & constricting “art world” by organizing & curating accessible, experimental opportunities and experiences for all outsiders — especially queers and freaks. With installation, movement, video, and illustration, Gelsey’s current work explores healing through themes of transmutation, ritual, dualities, mythology, ancestry, liminal spaces, the passage of time, and utopian/dystopian visions. Capricorn sun, Cancer rising, Virgo moon :-*
Gelsey Amelia
Jenna Crowder
Jenna Crowder is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and editor working in publication, installation, criticism, and curation as modes of public practice. She is interested in writing as a visual practice and language as a site of collaboration and performance. Jenna is the Co-Founding Editor of The Chart, an online arts journal that celebrates slow publishing, regionally-specific critical artistic dialogue, and IRL conversation as a form of publishing. Her writing has appeared in such publications as Art Papers, Boston Art Review, The Brooklyn Rail, BURNAWAY, Liminalities: a journal of performance studies, Temporary Art Review, and The Rib, among other places. The exhibition Persephone in the Late Anthropocene, which Jenna co-curated with poet Megan Grumbling, is currently on view at the University of New England.
Veronica Perez (b. 1983) utilizes hair, kitschy, and other unconventional materials in my sculptural works - I create intense personal moments by means of material hybridization and ideals of beauty. Material fragility echoes sentiments of a lost self, and at the same time comments on contemporary Latinx and feminist issues. Recently, I have been working at the intersection of identity, vulnerability, protection, and power through the facade of dark absurdity using materials such as sugar, fake hair, chain link fences, and fake sunflowers.
Veronica Perez
How is New System handling the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic?
Can you apply as a collaborative for an exhibition or curated project?
What events and programming accompany an exhibition at NSE?
My work is in-progress. Would you rather see older, finished work or in-progress shots?
If selected, can my exhibition evolve or differ from my submission?
When will I be notified?
How long are exhibitions? When will exhibitions be held?
How does New System divide the space for exhibitions? Can I apply for the full space (both Gallery A and B)?
We prefer to hold two simultaneous solo/collaborative exhibitions: one in Gallery B and the other in Gallery A. While uncommon, we will consider allowing any proposal to use both Gallery A & B, depending on the necessity of the request. We also encourage any large-scale curation project (with numerous artists/ideas) to consider proposing using the full space. See gallery layout below, and feel free to use it to make mockups of your proposal submission. Also, check out pictures of past exhibtions to get a better feel for our space.
Frequently Asked Questions