Upcoming Events
Japheth Asiedu-Kwarteng - Visiting Artist Series
JAPHETH ASIEDU-KWARTENG
Visiting Artist
Lecture:
4/17/24, 1-2pm — Belushi Auditorium
Japheth Asiedu-Kwarteng works primarily in ceramics to make an imminently contemporary statement that exemplifies an approach which transcends form and questions the relationship between tradition and modernity, cultural exchange, and tension. He has exhibited extensively locally and internationally, including 2022 and 2021 NCECA Annual. He is a member of NCECA, IAC and Artaxis. Among several publications and other scholarly works, Japheth was a presenter at 2021 and 2023 NCECA Conferences respectively. Japheth holds a BA Industrial Art (Ceramics option) from KNUST, Ghana, and an MFA in Ceramics from Illinois State University, USA. He has works in the permanent collections of the University Galleries, Normal, Illinois and other private collectors in the United States.
Chris Sancomb - Visiting Artist Series
CHRIS SANCOMB
Visiting Artist in Residence, March 2-16, 2024
Lecture:
3/6/24, 1-2pm — Playhouse Theatre
Chris Sancomb is an interdisciplinary artist, designer and educator who explores the intersections of creative practice through a wide range of media. His socially engaged design practice is focused on creating inclusive, interactive, and hands-on community based design collaborations that support varied learning styles, promote empathy, and help develop creative confidence. His studio research is focused on creating visual experiences that represent unobservable phenomena within the architecture of the universe. This work represents an expression of wonder at the elusive magnitude of Space, and serves as a way of obtaining knowledge and understanding through inquiry, synthesis, material exploration and making.
Dylan Miner - Visiting Artist Series
DYLAN MINER
Visiting Artist
Lecture:
2/13/24, 11am-12pm — Belushi Auditorium
Dylan AT Miner is an artist, activist, and scholar. He holds a PhD in Arts of the Américas from The University of New Mexico. He is currently Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education in the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Previously, he served as Dean and Professor in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH) at Michigan State University. As an artist, he has hung nearly 30 solo art exhibitions, as well as participated in more than 115 group exhibitions. He is a founding member of the artist collective Justseeds. His book Creating Aztlán: Chicano Art, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Lowriding Across Turtle Island (2014) was published by the University of Arizona Press. Born and raised in Michigan, Miner is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario.
Alana Ferguson - Visiting Artist Series
ALANA FERGUSON
Visiting Artist
Lecture: 11/15/2023, 11am-12pm — Belushi Auditorium
Alana Ferguson is an interdisciplinary artist and educator living in Chicago. She is interested in the construction and use of social conventions to frame individual choices, experiences and psychology. She received a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2012, an MAT from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016, and an MFA from University of Chicago in 2021. Her work has been exhibited most recently at the Logan Center Gallery at University of Chicago, Belong Gallery, and the Evanston Art Center.
Future Firm - Visiting Artist Series
FUTURE FIRM
Visiting Architect
Lecture:
10/18/23, 11am-12pm — Playhouse Theatre
Future Firm is a Chicago-based architecture and design research office. Founded by Ann Lui and Craig Reschke in 2015, the architecture practice spans diverse scales: from exhibition spaces to residential and commercial buildings to urban and territorial speculations. Future Firm’s work has been exhibited at Exhibit Columbus, Storefront for Art & Architecture, Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Architecture/Urbanism, New Museum’s Ideas City, and the Chicago Architecture Center. Future Firm also currently operates The Night Gallery, a nocturnal exhibition space on Chicago's South side, which features video and film works by artists and architects from sunset to sunrise.
India Johnson - Visiting Artist Series
INDIA JOHNSON
Visiting Artist in Residence, September 2023
Lecture:
9/20/23, 1-2PM — CHC 1020
India Johnson (b. 1992) is a Minneapolis-based artist who makes books and non-books (what’s a non-book? perhaps an installation or participatory project in or about libraries). India’s work associates textiles with formal practices for organizing information, and has been installed in churches, libraries, and galleries throughout the Midwest. In 2020, she received an MFA from the University of Iowa Center for the Book and became a founding member of LGBTQ Iowa Archives & Library. She is half of Late Night Copies Press, a micro-publisher of zines that feature material from queer archives. India’s critical writing about books and libraries has been published in print by Image, and in SONNET(S) (Ugly Duckling Press, 2020).
Pedro Gramaxo
Pedro Gramaxo
April 12, 2023, 1 p.m. CHC 1020
Pedro Gramaxo (Lisbon, 1989) is a Portuguese contemporary artist working internationally in constructive art, photography and film, analyzing and deepening our relation with space, time, memory and altered states of perception. Pedro has been exhibiting in solo and group shows and public spaces since 2012 from Portugal, Italy, Holland and Bosnia and Herzegovina to Brazil, China, Russia, Argentina and Iceland. His work has been published in physical and digital magazines and art platforms all over the world. Graduated in architecture from Lusíada University in Lisbon (2010), Masters in Arts (2012), where his academic education crossedbred between Art and Architecture, developing a technical research based practice within the contexts of “art spaces” and the representation of art “contexts”, enhancing the physical aspects of phenomenology.
Deke Weaver - Visiting Artist Series
Deke Weaver
March 14, 1 p.m. Belushi Performance Hall
Deke Weaver’s multidisciplinary work has been presented by 21c Museum Hotels, PBS, Sundance Film Festival, Channel 4/U.K., New York Video Festival at Lincoln Center, Chicago Humanities Festival, Berlin Video Festival, The Moth, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and many others including livestock pavilions, backyard sheds, forests, prairies, night clubs and living rooms. A Guggenheim Fellow, Creative Capital grantee, and Illinois Arts Council Fellow, he is currently a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign with appointments in the School of Art & Design, the Department of Theater, the Department of Dance, and faculty affiliation with the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies. unreliablebestiary.org
Alex Chitty - Visiting Artist Series
Alex Chitty
February 8, 11 a.m. Belushi Performance Hall
Visiting Artist Series
Alex Chitty (b. 1979, Miami, FL)
Chitty is a British/American transdisciplinary artist living and working in Chicago, IL.
MFA = School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Printmedia), 2008
BFA = Smith College (Smith Scholar: Education, Biology, Fine Art), 2001
Chitty is represented by PATRON Gallery and has worked with students, educators and institutions locally, throughout the United States and abroad; Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Horticultural Society of New York, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Smith College, University of Chicago, Spudnik Press, ACRE residency, Moraine Valley Community College, Columbia College, Aby Warburg Library, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, Palau Coral Reef Research Foundation, Belize Hol Chan Marine Reserve, Oxbow School of Arts, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Recent Exhibitions include: Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery, PATRON Gallery, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Elmhurst Art Museum, Virginia Commonwealth University, Luce Gallery, KMAC Museum, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
Alberto Aguilar - Visiting Artist Series
Alberto Aguilar
November 9, 2022, 1 p.m. Studio Theatre
Visiting Artist Series
Alberto Aguilar (b. 1974, Chicago) is a Chicago based artist that uses whatever material is at hand in an attempt to make a meaningful connection with the viewer. He does not distinguish his art practice from his other various life roles which allows him to make work wherever he is.
He has shown and presented his work at various museums, galleries, storefronts, homes and street corners around the world. Some of these include the Queens Museum, El Torito Supermercado, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, the corner of Cesar Chavez Ave and North Broadway in Los Angeles, CA, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit, Chicago City Hall, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Museo Del Jamon in Madrid, Spain, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Chicago River Jackson Bridge, The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, El Cosmico Trailer Park, Marfa, TX, El Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Havana, Cuba, Iowa rest stop I-80. His work is in the collection of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Jorge Lucero Study Collection, Soho House, Meta - Facebook, The National Museum of Mexican Art, The Office of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Along with some members of his family he collectively organizes Mayfield, a multi-use space which operates on the grounds of his home
Brian Harper - Visiting Artist Series
Brian Harper
October 18, 2022, 1 p.m. Playhouse Theatre
Visiting Artist Series
Brian Harper is an Associate Professor of Fine Art and Head of the Ceramics Area at Indiana University Southeast. Brian is also the Founder and Executive Director of Artaxis, a 501(c)3 non-profit art organization that engages the ceramics community through promotional, educational, and networking programs while celebrating diverse artistic practices and being a resource of aesthetic values. He manages Artaxis.org, which hosts over 10,000 images of artwork by over 950 Artaxis members worldwide. He holds a BFA from Northern Arizona University and an MA and MFA from the University of Iowa. His artwork has been exhibited in over 100 national and international exhibitions. He lives in New Albany, Indiana with his wife Tiffany Carbonneau and their daughter June, and their dog, Oliver.
Susan Kirt - Visiting Artist Series
Susan Kirt
September 20, 2022, 1 p.m. Belushi Performance Hall
Visiting Artist Series
Susan is camera-wielding, Chicago based botanist. She is passionate about prairies and insects having been raised “volunteering” at the College of DuPage restorations with her parents from an early age. Susan was bitten by the macrophotography “bug” ten years ago, and finds insects particularly fascinating. As a photographer and scientist, Susan hopes her viewers are awed by the overlooked insects around them and inspired to protect their local habitat.
Susan holds an AS (Biology) degree from COD in addition degrees in Botany and Prairie Ecology. She is looking forward to returning to COD as the Artist-In-Resident this fall and cannot wait to share her passion for prairies, insects and photography with students and the community.
Recently Susan contributed photographs for the new Save The Dunes Living in the Dunes Pollinator Guide (available online). As a Field Museum Research Associate, her photography is also featured in their downloadable Rapid Field Guides.
Resources
susankirtphotography.com
Facebook and Instagram: @SusanKirtPhotography
Save the Dunes Pollinator Guide
Rapid Field Guide Example: Orchids of the Chicago Region