Antonym means opposite.

Front, back. New, old. Stop, go. Up, down.

Every schoolchild can rattle off a list of words that qualify as antonyms. What happens if the descriptive noun is applied not to words but to art?

That is the question art department faculty members try to answer in their annual exhibit at the University of Maine Museum of Art. In designing this year’s show, titled “Antonyms,” the 23 full- and part-time instructors each agreed to display one signature work and one piece of art that is atypical of their usual style.

Last year, the faculty chose an artwork they admired from the museum’s permanent collection, then placed a piece of their own work next to it, according to James Linehan, chairman of the art department. That show was called “Dialogue.”

“I have been doing large landscapes for the past six years,” he said. “I liked the idea of doing a piece that was different. It didn’t end up the way I thought it would … On the whole, this show looks like it was done by two different groups of artists, rather than the same people.”

Each artist defined the boundaries of the word antonym and exactly how far he would venture from his typical medium and way of working. Some chose simply to switch subject matter rather than medium, according to Linehan. Others created pieces they had put off finishing for years. Still others ventured far from their usual artistic turf.

The antonym theme is carried out in the way the piece is displayed and labeled. On the second floor of the museum are the works the artists are well-known for, not only within the department, but also in the “art world” of Maine and beyond the state’s borders. On the first floor are the works created for this year’s show. Most of them are titled, but on the placards where the name of the artist normally would go, every piece is labeled “anonymous.”

The artists’ statement, collaborated upon by faculty, says that this was done “so that you might explore these works freshly, without any preconceptions that labels so readily foster … Our choice of anonymity encourages our explorations beyond those limits that we unconsciously set by working with familiar materials, rhetorical modes and conceptual frameworks.”

While the faculty strives to stress the “communal nature of the show,” it has offered the public an intriguing visual puzzle, but no solution. While it may be fun to wander from one floor to another, looking for clues to an artist’s identity in the work displayed, no insight into the artist can be gleaned, without being able to put a name to a piece of artwork.

There are hints. Upstairs, Linehan’s oil painting “Morning Ruse – Brooksville Hill” fills one whole wall. His large, distinctive brush strokes are visible as is the utter stillness of the moment. On the placard bearing his and the painting’s titles is the name of the New York gallery that handles his work. That, definitely, is a clue.

Downstairs is a multimedia piece bearing the name of the same gallery, but the credit is anonymous. It is made up of a board that looks like barn wood, leaning against a wall. A small whisk broom hangs from the back of the board. Attached to its front is a framed picture of a giant Buddha. It is called “Walking the Dog.”

Upstairs is Ed Nadeau’s untitled oil and wax painting of a snowy field. It is classic Nadeau – spare, barren, still – yet, somehow warm and inviting. Is one of the paintings downstairs his? Did his boyish humor get the best of him and is he the one who turned a 2-by-4 to sawdust, then, giggling, left it piled in the middle of the first floor?

Cher Knight’s series of color photographic portraits depict the same young woman in a series of different poses. She changes her clothes and makeup, dons a wig and restyles her hair to portray adjectives such as “innocence.” Did Knight stray but a little way from her signature and make the fuzzy black and white pinhole photos that appear to have traveled forward in time a century? Or did she turn to an even older art form to capture the single blue iris awash in a yellow sky with oil paints on canvas?

Real grass grows atop Owen Smith’s tall table in the upstairs gallery. It looks like some teen-ager’s unruly mop dyed green and is the only thing adding color and dimension to the flat computerized black and white face that has been printed, then glued, onto the tabletop. Did he abandon his whimsical nature to fashion the dark ceramic bowl downstairs? Like the man’s face, it is more flat than rounded. Is that the clue that connects the piece downstairs to the artwork upstairs and, thus, reveals the artist’s identity?

The answers never are revealed. The ordinary visitor, familiar with only a few of the “big name” faculty artists, leaves the exhibit unsatisfied not knowing who created what. This easily could have been solved by offering the viewer the option of stopping by the office after the exhibit for the solution to the riddle. That would have allowed people the chance to share in the secret, rather than be excluded from it.

“Antonyms,” however, does accomplish its goal of demonstrating the depth of the art department faculty. The work ranges from paintings to photographs to mixed-media sculptures to furniture. As much as it shows off the department’s strengths, “Antonyms” also points to it weaknesses – missing are examples of fiber arts, jewelry making, and, with one exception, the ceramic arts.

The museum is preparing to move off campus into downtown Bangor where it can fling open its storage bins and display its extensive and diverse permanent collection to the public. The new location will be a place where art experts, novices and even self-avowed art haters will have access to all kinds of work.

“Antonyms” will be on exhibit through March 24. Museum hours are from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Saturday. For more information, call 581-3255.