Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break

In 2008, Los Angeles-based artist Sharon Lockhart spent the year in Maine visiting factories, farms, and industrial sites. One of these sites was the Bath Iron Works, where for a period of several months she observed and engaged with workers, forging collaborative relationships throughout the shipyard. The films and photographs produced from this experience focus on these workers during their midday break.

The exhibition includes the films Lunch Break and Exit, as well as three series of photographs. For the exhibition at the Colby Museum, Lockhart, in collaboration with the architects Frank Escher and Ravi GuneWardena, has selected a group of works by other artists and artisans that will be displayed in conjunction with works from the Lunch Break project. Additions to the exhibition are drawn from the Colby Museum’s collection, other Maine museums, and private lenders. The dialogues that emerge from this evocative constellation of works offer viewers the opportunity to question conventional conceptions of art, craft, and work and their relationships to each other and everyday life.

Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break is organized by the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. Presentation of the exhibition at Colby College is co-organized by the Colby College Museum of Art and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.