Nick Maione is a Western Massachusetts based artist, poet, and teacher from upstate New York. He received a BFA in painting from Cornell University and an MFA in creative writing from Umass Amherst. This year Nick was awarded artist residencies at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, and at the Catena Artistorum in Lviv, Ukraine. He is the director and founder of Orein Arts Residency (orein.org), which organizes short-term multi-disciplinary arts residencies at monasteries. 

In his work, Nick often explores similarities between the sistered vocations of a life of faith and the life of the artist. He is currently working on a poetry manuscript that comes out of his experience as a pilgrim walking the Camino de Santiago. Recently, a poem from this collection was set to music by classical choral composer Christian Martin and performed by the Princeton Singers; Nick's poems have also appeared in several journals, as well as in a chapbook from 2016, "In A Well In A Church On An Island In The Lake." His visual art currently focuses on ink brush paintings, offset monotypes, and photography, and in the past he has studied iconography under Vladislav Andrejev in the Prosopon School of Iconology. In addition to his own work, he often performs collaboratively with folk musicians and across other artistic disciplines. More information can be found at his website: nickmaione.com.

This is Nick's first exhibition as a guest curator. He would like to thank the wonderful and talented monks and nuns for their work, their eager participation, and their prayers. And of course, a thank you to everyone at the Dedee Shattuck Gallery, and to Ben Shattuck for the help and guidance.