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.
Fall 2021
Kari Reardon, September 16, 2021
Kari Reardon, sculptor, will be the first presenter of the Fall 2021 semester. Ms.
Reardon received her B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999
after studying at the Studio Arts Center in Florence, Italy and completed her M.F.A.
in 2012 from the California Institute of the Arts. Kari has been a recipient of numerous
grants, residencies and fellowships throughout the U.S. and internationally. Currently
she has a studio in Mount Washington and teaches sculpture, bronze casting and beginning
3-D design at California State University Northridge.
According to Reardon, her “fantastical sculptures are hybrids inspired by the shift in the way that we use bodies to communicate through technology. Thumbs are replacing our tongues and forming new languages through our social media-centric world of constant communication, via texting, Facebook, Twitter and instant messaging. Technology, changes the way we relate, identify, communicate/miscommunicate. By distorting the inherent meaning of found objects and shifting scale, I play with constructs and identity to point to the absurdity of our ever growing virtual experience. I conjoin dreams, childhood memories, and pop culture references in a somewhat dark and humorous way to point to the surreal existence of our technological new norm.” For more information, visit Kari Reardon’s website.
Ms. Reardon gave a presentation via Zoom on Thursday, September 16, 2021 at 7:30 p.m. View Ms. Reardon’s presentation here.
Ian Boyden, September 21, 2021
Ian Boyden, visual artist, writer and translator, will be the second presenter of
the Fall 2021 semester. Mr. Boyden’s productions are an intense interest in material
relevance, place-based thought, and ecology, with a deep awareness of East Asian aesthetics.
He studied for several years in China and Japan, and ultimately received degrees in
the History of Art from Wesleyan University (Middletown, Conn.) and Yale University.
His work is interdisciplinary and collaborations have involved a variety of scientists,
poets, composers, and other visual artists. To learn more, visit Ian Boyden’s website.
Mr. Boyden gave a presentation via Zoom on Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 7:30 p.m. View the Ian Boyden presentation here.
Katie Rutherford, October 5, 2021
Katie Rutherford, graphic designer, will be the third presenter of the Fall 2021 semester.
Ms. Rutherford is co-founder and chief creative officer of Ruthless & Wellington,
a branding and design studio in Burlington, Vermont. Ms. Rutherford is a California-grown,
Vermont native, hop lover, vegetable enthusiast, runner, biker, eternally curious
creative type with a passion for sustainability. For more information, please visit
Ruthless & Wellington’s website.
Ms. Rutherford gave a presentation via Zoom on Tuesday, October 5, 2021, at 7:30 p.m. View Katie Rutherford’s presentation here.
Eric Reinemann, October 14, 2021
Eric Reinemann, painter, will be our fourth presenter of the Fall 2021 semester. Reinemann
is a process-oriented painter who works rapidly in small series, each one exploring
a new medium and a new visual subject for the duration of the group. “Everything revolves
around the perceptual drawing process. Acrylics, oils, watercolor, gouache, inks,
crayon, and straight up graphite line drawing are all put to use. The goal is always
the same; find a subject and make the most unique version I possibly can of it. To
learn more, visit Eric Reinemann’s website.
Mr. Reinemann will give a presentation via Zoom on Thursday, October 14, 2021, at 7:30 p.m.
Dr. John Peffer, October 28, 2021
Dr. John Peffer, art historian, will be our fifth presenter of the Fall 2021 semester.
Dr. Peffer is a specialist in modern African art and photography and is an Associate
Professor of Art History at Ramapo College in New Jersey. He is a past president of
the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA), the author of Art and
the End of Apartheid (2009) and co-editor of Photography and Portraiture in Africa
(2013). Dr. Peffer’s research has examined the historiography of African Art History,
art and visual culture in South Africa during apartheid, and general issues of global
modernity and human rights in art, photography and visuality. For more information,
please visit Dr. John Peffer’s faculty webpage.
Dr. Peffer will give a presentation via Zoom on Thursday, October 28, 2021, at 7:30 p.m.
Russel Wrankle, November 3, 2021
Russel Wrankle, ceramic sculptor, will be our sixth presenter of the semester. Mr.
Wrankle grew up in the “boonies” outside of Palm Springs, California. He spent his
childhood hunting in the desert outside his home. Coming from a blue-collar background,
he always assumed that he would work in manual labor, but that changed when he took
his first ceramics class in college. Today he is an associate professor of art at
Southern Utah University, where he teaches 3D and 2D design, multimedia and ceramic
sculpture.
According to Wrankle, he tells “visual stories with the use of animal imagery. In my work I wrestle with existential questions of life and death through the symbolism of the body and animals. My intensely saturated ceramic figures represent the decadence of worldly pleasures, a vibrant source of energy that is antithetical to death and dying. It is through embracing life and living that the pull of death and suffering is kept at a distance.” To learn more, please visit Russel Wrankle’s website
Mr. Wrankle will gave a presentation via Zoom on Wednesday, November 3, 2021, at 7:30 p.m. View Russel Wrankle’s presentation.
Keith Carter, November 10, 2021
Keith Carter, photographer, will be our seventh presenter of the Fall 2021 semester.
Mr. Carter is an American photographer known for his ghostly images of animals, still
lifes, portraits, and figures in landscapes. Using black-and-white photography and
varied focuses, he creates a mysterious sense of mythology and disorientation, making
strange the familiar places and people of his native East Texas. “It’s not so much
what you see, it’s the significance that you see in things that give them resonance,”
Carter has said. “I like small moments that are almost elliptical, that are not necessarily
linear...they’re natural things that happen in the world, but if you look at them
from a slight angle there’s more than meets the eye.” His works are in the collections
of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the National
Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Carter
lives and works in Beaumont, Texas. To learn more, please visit Keith Carter’s website.
Mr. Carter gave a presentation via Zoom on Wednesday, November 10, 2021, at 7:30 p.m. View Keith Carter’s presentation.