The ways in which we view the world often seem black and white. We garner knowledge. We study, challenge, and entangle what we learn with what we know. Experiencing life and interacting with our surroundings is a constant loop where one must make sense of their predisposed thoughts while simultaneously interrelating new thoughts of others. Often, we intake material that is homogenous with our own beliefs. We listen to comedians who make us laugh; we read articles by journalists with similar opinions; we praise politicians with identical party views; we follow Instagram-famous content creators who tell us what we want to hear; we reverberate the quotes of our parents to our friends during debates. The list goes on. Unsurprisingly, this creates an opposing effect when we are introduced to perspectives unlike our own. We turn off the TV when listening to so-called comics who seem too crass, too unapologetic, too severe; we scroll past newspaper articles with titles disparaging our own opinions; we critique political opponents with ad-hominem attacks; we block X-accounts and TikTok influencers who challenge our positions; we belittle the outcast relative with controversial stances. Confidence in opinion is important. Most of the time, this steadfastness exists concurrently with thoughtfulness, care, and awareness. But if we train ourselves to view the world in too black and white a lens, we lose the ability to see the intersecting impressions of people with diverse opinions, and we forget to leave space for conversation.
On September 11, 2025, the Colby College Museum of Art opened its 2025 Faculty Biennial, featuring pieces of a variety of mediums by Alex Nelson, Bevin Engman, Bradley Borthwick, Gary Green, Hannah Subotnick, Luke Johnson, and Takahiro Suzuki. After touring the exhibition, one of my first thoughts was about the form — whether an archival pigment print, a video, an oil painting layered on wood, or any other example of the ample creative media used, the art itself had an ability unlike most of the information we consume: to be involved in a discussion. These artists used personal experiences, beliefs, pasts, and perspectives to forge art that responded to unique sentiments within viewers while telling their own narrative. After talking with Professor Nelson, unpacking these similarities and differences between viewer and artist perspective became particularly interesting to me. My first interpretation of her piece, Middle Beach, was that it seemed incredibly private; a moment captured through a blurred lens that, as I described it to her, felt both ever present and fleeting. The photograph is dense with nostalgia. When I asked for her own description of the work, Nelson offered some of the same sentiments as well as deviations, detailing the perceptions and emotions unique to her own upbringing. She notes, “Middle Beach is quite personal in that the photograph is of my mother, in Kennebunk, Maine where I grew up. Middle Beach is a place where I spent a lot of time growing up, it was a place to gather with friends, even in the off-season when it was too cold to be by the shore and we would just sit in our cars. It is the place I usually drive to first when coming home for a visit, somewhere quiet and reflective.” Her photograph revives a sentimental moment, watching her “mother through a window screen,” which Nelson documented by “setting [her] camera’s focus to the ocean and landscape instead of [her] mother, creating a dream-like atmosphere.”
Middle Beach reminded me that we must choose to perceive beyond the black and white, and not just because the photo is in color. Rather, it’s a metaphor for introducing oneself to new perspectives while nevertheless holding onto one’s own experiences. My discussion with Professor Nelson gave credence to my own interpretations of the art while introducing me to her own, individual story.
Lunder Curator of American Art, Sarah Humphreville, notes that “this show in many ways seems more subtle.” The art on display certainly responds to our current world in political, social, and cultural contexts, but it also encourages conversations about far less contentious ideas. It upholds the general philosophy of why we create and display art — to encourage both viewers and artists to interact with one another, to share ideas, to reflect, all through the means of a visual. The openness that is expected from audience members extends not only to more outwardly opinionated pieces, like Takahiro Suzuki’s The Internet is Killing Us, but across various works and themes. As Sarah Humphreville explains, “art is not made in a vacuum, artists in general are always responding to the environment and world around them.” Even Professor Nelson’s triptych of sea towns, which may be seemingly simple in subject, are teeming with complexities and important discussions. Nelson developed these pieces with the goal of articulating “how socioeconomic dynamics exist within the landscape of coastal towns, particularly the one [she] grew up in.” Her photographs of the Bush family compound, which use a digital camera and an old zoom lens, “address surveillance.” Nelson notes that she is particularly “drawn to how [the camera] can render abstraction through its sensitive focus, like in the center image of the triptych of a hydrangea bush. The hydrangeas end up looking more like molecules; to suggest the way the presence of power can seep into an environment.” Nelson encourages us to look more deeply into what we see—to be observant. She melds the emotional connection between viewers and her artwork with her individual opinion to tell a rich, complicated story.
The 2025 Faculty Biennial invites Colby students to be curious. The exhibition, which closes October 1, 2025, supports a foundational value that if not protected, is often tarnished — that to be actively living, one must be actively challenged, actively engrossed, and actively experiencing life through the profusion of perspectives and narratives it provides.
~ Maya Corrie `29
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