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Visual Artist Series


The Visual Artist Series is collaboratively organized and hosted by faculty and students. Funded by the Student Association through the Campus Arts Council, the series typically brings seven to nine artists to our campus every year. These artists give public lectures, workshops, demos and critiques. Artists from all media are represented in the series. They come from all over the U.S. and Canada and, from time-to-time, other countries.

Spring 2023


Katie Baldwin, February 22, 2023

Woodblock print alluding to evacuation from a crisis. This work explores emergency preparednessKatie Baldwin, printmaker and book artist, will be the first presenter of the spring 2023 semester. Her work explores methods of abstraction and representation of landscape through printmaking, drawing and textiles. Recognizable subjects of rivers, mountains and gardens are deconstructed utilizing color, pattern, shape and form. Her images use a compositional structure, such as inverted point of view, as well as defiance of scale, proportions and time. In this way, the work challenges the unity of time by showing several moments at once. Ms. Baldwin’s work reveals the interior and exterior of both human-made and natural environments. Her imagery depicts both a familiar and imagined world, inspired by fact, fiction, and first impressions of the world. Mountains, rivers, cages, and bridges become the manufactured stages on which complex narratives play out. To learn more, visit http://www.katieameliabaldwin.com/

Ms. Baldwin gave a presentation via Zoom on Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. Watch presentation

Shawna Jones, March 2, 2023

Collage titled "Biophilia"; explores voyages with reptiles, ocean creatures, other moons and worlds and map imageryAlumna Shawna (Armstrong) Jones ’12, graphic designer, will be our second presenter of the spring semester. Ms. Jones is a multidisciplinary designer and a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) by the IAAP. In her work she strives to create environments and experiences that allow people to feel included, safe, uninhibited, and encouraged. Shawna is a communications specialist for The Center for Transportation and the Environment in Atlanta, GA. Her work supports strategic efforts to grow CTE’s reputation and strengthen CTE’s brand across all communications activities of the organization, with particular emphasis on graphic design, digital marketing, and deliverable development. To learn more, visit https://ototally.com/

Ms. Jones gave a presentation via Zoom on Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. Watch presentation

Rebecca Sexton Larson, March 21, 2023

Black Hole; limited edition archival pigment print. Explores concepts of storytelling using landscape as primary element of photographic contructions.Rebecca Sexton Larson, photographer, will be our third presenter of the spring semester. Ms. Sexton Larson is a Tampa-based studio artist working with alternative and digital photographic processes to explore universal themes of innocence and irony, loneliness, and loss. She graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in fine arts (painting) and mass communications (photojournalism) and was awarded Florida Individual Artist Fellowships in 1998, 2002, and 2008. In 2005, she was commissioned by the City of Tampa to be its photographer laureate, photographing the city using a handmade pinhole camera. Sexton Larson has taught, lectured, and exhibited work nationally at various arts institutions and organizations. Many of her works include hand painting and incorporate stitching and sewing. Her pieces are in numerous major collections throughout the country, including: Polaroid, Progressive Corporate Art, Graham Nash (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), Santa Fe Historical Museum and the Tampa Museum of Art. To learn more, visit https://www.sextonlarson.com/

Ms. Sexton Larson will give a presentation via Zoom on Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.

Tiffani Love, April 6, 2023

Dappled landscape painting; cows dot lush green countryside next to a body of waterAlumna, Tiffani Love ’17, is a painter and will be our fourth presenter of the spring semester. Ms. Love is an American-born artist who lives and works in the west of Ireland. Her forthcoming solo exhibition Hushing at the Ballaí Bana Gallery in Belfast opens in February 2023. Love’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions. She received her B.F.A. in 2017 from SUNY Plattsburgh and her M.F.A. in 2022 from the Burren College of Art and NUI Galway, and was longlisted for the RDS Visual Art Awards the same year. Love was awarded the Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland and the prestigious Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant in 2022. Love is based between County Clare and Galway, living rurally in the Burren and working out of Barton Studios in Galway City. To learn more, visit https://www.tiffaniloveart.com/

Ms. Love will give a presentation via Zoom on Thursday, April 6, 2023, at 7:30 p.m.

Derek Toomes, April 11, 2023

The artist holds a woodblock print surrounded by geographic black and white printsDerek Toomes, sculptor, will be our fifth presenter of the spring semester. Mr. Toomes is drawn to the iconic imagery of popular culture, as he is equally interested our societal location as a culture inundated by imagery. His sourcing as well as appropriation of images allows Derek to create work that is aesthetically and anthropologically situated within culture, while also commenting on that culture. His images, videos, kinetic objects, and installations are both: self aware, and art aware, as they operate as contemporary atavistic viewing experiences. He is based in Greensboro and Raleigh, NC  is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Interior Architecture at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. To learn more, visit https://www.derektoomes.com/

Mr. Toomes will give a presentation on Tuesday, April 11, 2023, at 7:30 p.m. in Ward Hall, room 110.

Linda Lopez, April 24, 2023

Abstract works explore the poetic potential of the everyday by imagining and articulating a vast emotional range embedded in the mundane objects that surround usLinda Lopez, ceramic artist, will be our sixth and final presenter of the spring semester. Ms. Lopez is a first generation American artist of Vietnamese and Mexican descent. Her abstract works explore the poetic potential of the everyday by imagining and articulating a vast emotional range embedded in the mundane objects that surround us. Her works have been exhibited in Italy, New Zealand, England and throughout the United States including the Craft Contemporary Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Art and Design, New York; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville; Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach; The Hole Gallery, New York; Fisher Parrish Gallery, Brooklyn; and David B. Smith Gallery, Denver. She has been an artist in residence at The Clay Studio, Archie Bray Foundation, CRETA Rome, and Greenwich House Pottery. To learn more, visit http://www.lindalopez.net/

Ms. Lopez will give a presentation via Zoom on Monday, April 24, 2023, at 7:30 p.m.

 

Fall 2022


Anne Carnein, September 28, 2022

Sculpture of tour mushrooms sitting atop a weaving sprawl of what appears to be tree rootsAnne Carnein, sculptor and fiber artist, will be the first presenter of the fall 2022 semester. Ms. Carnein, born in Northern Germany, studied sculpture at State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe (Germany) followed by Masterclass with professor Stephan Balkenhol. She has been an artist-in-residence in Germany and the U.S. and exhibited in Germany, France, Finland and the U.S. She lives and works in Southern Germany. Carnein’s subjects are mainly plants and mushrooms, which are formed of fabric, thread and wire. Ms. Carnein studies the growth form, colors and biological characteristics of plants and fungi. She then translates her observations into sculptures that she sews by hand using different textiles. Some are worn, using and combining the various colors of the fabrics in an almost painterly way. To learn more, please plan to attend.

Ms. Carnein gave a presentation via Zoom on Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 7:30 p.m. Watch Ms. Carnein’s presentation.

Josephine Halvorson, October 6, 2022

A painting: looking down at a section of a fallen tree with a scattering of brown oak leaves, ferns and mosses. There appears to be a metal marker pole in the foreground with a pink tag hanging from it.Josephine Halvorson, painter, will be the second presenter of the semester. Ms. Halvorson makes art that foregrounds firsthand experience and takes the form of painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Born in Brewster, Massachusetts, she studied at The Cooper Union (B.F.A.), Yale Norfolk, and Columbia University (M.F.A.). In 2021, she was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. Halvorson is the recipient of major international residencies and fellowships her work has been exhibited internationally. Ms. Halvorson’s paintings are largely en plein air. Her scenes often depict areas found in her everyday life and natural environment, such as books, doors, windows, post-industrial machines and areas of ground. Through her practice of painting on-site and in one continuous session, her paintings are able to mark the time and place of their own creation. Halvorson’s work investigates how place and environment manifests in a painting.

To learn more, please visit Josephine Halvorson’s website.

Ms. Halvorson gave a presentation via Zoom on Thursday, October 6, 2022 at 7:30 p.m. Watch Ms. Halvorson’s presentation.

Diana Behl, October 17, 2022

Titled: "is only". A collaged relief and letterpress prints; drawn and gouache painted Mulberry on cotton rag boardDiana Behl, printmaker, will be the third presenter of the fall semester. Ms. Behl is an artist and educator based in Brookings, S.D. She holds an M.F.A. and M.A. in printmaking from The University of Iowa, a B.F.A. in two-dimensional and design studies from Bowling Green State University, and is an associate professor in the School of Design at South Dakota State University. Behl has received grants from the Bush and Griffith Foundations and the South Dakota Arts Council to support her artistic and teaching practices, which are rooted in traditional printmaking processes and works on paper. Her images are prompted by specific instances — memories of places visited, passages read, bits of everyday references, or interactions of material and form — both in and outside of the studio. Using these prompts, her practice then evolves around the improvisation and discovery uncovered while making, further enabling form to embody the evolution of that specific cue.

To learn more, please visit Diana Behl’s website

Ms. Behl gave a presentation via Zoom on Monday, October 17, 2022, at 7:30 p.m. Watch Ms. Behl’s presentation.

Nadezda Nikolova, November 3, 2022

A dark, moody landscape photogram; a round shape (moon or sun) appears behind a mountain top and is reflected in water belowNadezda Nikolova, photographic artist, will be the fourth presenter of the semester. Nikolova’s practice is informed by an experimental approach to early photographic processes and her interest in the materiality of the photographic medium. Focusing primarily on wet plate collodion, Nadezda is recontextualizing the historic process, traditionally used for portraits and landscape photography, by creating cameraless image-objects. The photogram as a medium allows her to search for the essence by employing simplicity and abstraction. Nadezda studied historic processes at George Eastman Museum with Mark Osterman and at the University of Kentucky. She was a finalist for the 2018 LensCulture Exposure Awards and is represented by HackelBury Fine Art. She lives and works in Oakland, California.

To learn more, please visit Nadezda Nikolova’s website

Ms. Nikolova will give a presentation via Zoom on Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 7:30 p.m.

Jason Chin, December 1, 2022

Cover illustration for "Watercress", a book by Andrea Wang and pictures by Jason Chin. A young girl in rolled up jeans and a t-shirt walks barefoot through a cornfield. She carries a paper bag in her hand.Jason Chin, illustrator and author of children’s books, will be our fifth presenter of the semester. Mr. Chin grew up in a small town in New Hampshire. He studied art at Syracuse University and began his illustration career while living in New York City. In 2009 he published Redwoods, his first book as both author and illustrator. Since then, he as written and illustrated numerous award-winning books that combine his passion for nature, science and art. While researching his books, he’s gone swimming with sharks, explored lava fields and camped with scorpions at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Jason loves making art, learning about science and getting outside to hike, bike, ski and explore. He lives with his family in Vermont.

To learn more about Jason Chin and his children’s books, please visit us.macmillan.com/author/jasonchin

Mr. Chin will give a presentation via Zoom on Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 7:30 p.m.

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