Past Exhibits

The RC Art Gallery hosts three exhibitions per semester, below is a selection of shows from 2018-2024. For the current show, please visit the RC Art Gallery page or click Current Exhibition below.

Current Exhibition

Visual Arts Program

"Syzygy"

Karin Wagner Coron, Lynda Cole

October 20 - November 22, 2025

The public is cordially invited to an artist's reception on October 24 at 4:30 pm in the RC Art Gallery.

As Ann Arbor based artists, Karin Wagner Coron and Lynda Cole are recently drawn to the concept of "syzygy" , literally - the alignment of three celestial bodies in a straight line. Through their vibrant paintings, intricate drawings, and innovative mixed media works, they explore the idea of yoking together seemingly opposing forces. Their art is a celebration of the art of opposites, pushing boundaries and challenging perceptions. With a figurative interpretation of syzygy, they embark on a journey of self-discovery and interconnectedness. Each piece is a unique reflection of their individual styles and different approaches to the art of opposites. Together, Karin and Lynda create a harmonious balance, shining a light on the power of collaboration and the beauty in embracing duality.

Artist's Statement - Lynda Cole

I’ve been interested in various forms of design for as long as I can remember. From simple art projects before I was ten to sewing my own clothes in my teen years to a BS in Fabric and Clothing Design from Michigan State University. After that I worked and lived in NYC until I went back to Michigan and took up Botany at the University of Michigan. From there I started my own landscaping company, Wildwood Flower. Design wove its way through all these changes. From Michigan I moved with my family to London, England where we lived for five years. Although I had been participating in various forms of design all through my life it was in England that I moved into fine art more fully.

Upon returning to the US I spent my time on the fine arts. I was invited to join WSG Gallery in Ann Arbor Michigan and was its President for 15 years. I am still a member of WSG and regularly exhibit my artwork there. Media that has engaged me and still does engage me: painting with encaustic and or oils, designing on the computer and printing the results. I make no claims to being a photographer but do enjoy photography and altered, sometimes very altered, results. Reading often suggests paintings. Whether it’s fiction with a simple beautiful description in nature or non fiction with straight description, or things used to describe a mood, I draw from it. Some things I underline in fiction would surprise a person glancing though the book. The underlinings aren’t always about the story. Often they are descriptions of colors or compositions or a link to something in my mind that references a potential painting.

I have been in many shows. The highpoint was winning 3rd prize in 2011 Art Prize in Grand Rapids, Michigan with a 3D artwork called ‘Rain’. I continue to explore artwork using encaustic paint, oil paint, 3D hanging sculpture, silver leaf/gold leaf/palladium leaf on paper or DuraLar surfaces and painted surfaces, altered photographs and combinations of these media. Nature and geometry inspire me.

Artist's Bio - Karin Wagner Coron

Karin Wagner Coron is an artist based in Ypsilanti, MI. Working primarily with drawing and painting, she constructs vibrant scenes to explore the theme of tension and harmony. Her landscape-based compositions unify opposing and complementary colors, while applying her extensive knowledge of chromatic harmony. She carefully layers warm and cool hues to bring light and atmosphere to her works; introducing pink as an unexpected complement or visual adversary. Karin values the interesting friction that these scenarios create, believing that this combination can produce something unique, and visually soothing. She is captivated by the visual “push and pull” generated with the refined application of colors, shades, and forms, allowing her to delicately construct complex scenes

Maris Van Vlack
"Subtle Machines"

August 25 - October 3, 2025

The public is cordially invited to an artist's reception on September 19 at 4:30 pm in the RC Art Gallery.

Artist's Statement

Using traditional textile techniques, Maris Van Vlack constructs tactile images that reference topography, geology, and generational memory. Her work is primarily hand-woven, consisting of panels of fabric slowly built up thread by thread, trapping memory and history in the sedimentary process. After hand-weaving the base tapestry, she layers the surface with drawn, painted, and stitched marks and incorporates areas of industrial jacquard weaving and stoll knitting. Each piece balances the materiality of the fibers and the atmosphere created within the deep pictorial space. The landscapes in the work depict architectural spaces from her family’s history, referencing photographs of places in Europe destroyed during World War II, where family members lived. Her work is a window through which to see layers of time and memory, depicting the space between the past and the present.

Visitors can expect to experience a diverse array of media and ideas - hand-built ceramic forms inspired by ritual and storytelling, black-and-white and digital photography that captures human complexity and everyday beauty, and prints that explore texture, technique, and the political power of visual repetition. Sculpture students have transformed mixed media into bold, dimensional statements, while others have tackled the intersection of art and activism through socially engaged projects. From first-time makers to advanced artists refining their craft, each piece represents an individual journey through process, reflection, and expression.

Artist's Bio

Maris Van Vlack is an interdisciplinary artist from Massachusetts who works with textiles and painting. She received a BFA in Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design with a concentration in Drawing. Among her many accomplishments Maris exhibited in the USA and Europe, including shows at the U. S. Capitol Building, Superhouse, and the RISD Museum, she received the Kennedy Center’s VSA Emerging Artist Award 2024, and has been published by the Boston Globe, Dwell Magazine, and Warp + Weft Magazine.

Gallery Exhibits 2024-2025

Student Art Show

April 16 - May 5, 2025

The public is cordially invited to an artist's reception on April 17 at 4:30 pm in the RC Art Gallery.

Join us for the Residential College Student Art Show, a dynamic celebration of creativity, curiosity, and community. Featuring work from students across all levels of the RC Visual Arts Program, this exhibition brings together projects developed over the Winter 2025 semester in courses ranging from ceramics and sculpture to photography, printmaking, and environmental art.

Featured courses include:

Introduction to Visual Thinking: Adventures in Creativity
Art and the Environment: Environmental Alchemy
Printmaking I–III
Photography I–III & Socially Engaged Visual Art in Prison
Sculpture I–III
Ceramics I–III & Ceramics and Ritual: The Object as Protagonist

The RC Art Gallery, nestled in East Quad, serves as the perfect backdrop for this showcase of student talent. As part of the only U-M program that requires a fine arts studio course, the RC Visual Arts Program fosters both technical skill and conceptual depth. Whether you're here to support a friend, seek creative inspiration, or simply immerse yourself in student expression, we invite you to witness the power of art to transform ideas into tangible, thought-provoking form..

Breaking with Tradition

February 27-April 11, 2025

The public is cordially invited to an artist's reception on March 28 at 4:30 pm in the RC Art Gallery.

Artist John Rizzo will be exhibiting individual mixed-media sculptures that bridgeacross art, design, and craft. Using a combination of materials that are historicallyperceived as precious Johns’ work distorts, disrupts, and re-contextualizes perceptionsof materials and their values. His work is at once , colorful , playful , layered and deeplyself-reflective in its personal narrative.

John Rizzo is currently the Woodshop Manager and Adjunct Faculty Color and Materials MFA Department at the College for Creative Studies. John has lent his labor and teaching skills to a wide variety of community organizations and schools, including: MOCAD, Arts Place, Art on the Move, CAMP Detroit and People for Palmer Park Arts. John has displayed his works nationwide at various venues in addition to his dedication to art scholarship, teaching and academia.

Red Summer: Racial Violence in the American Landscape, 1917-1923

January 8 - February 21, 2025

The public is cordially invited to an artist's talk on February 21 at 4:30 pm in the Art Gallery followed by a reception.

The Red Summer portfolio represents the stories of various locations in the American landscape where racial violence (often characterized as “Race Wars” at the time) erupted between 1917 and 1923. These years of conflict reveal several aspects of racial anxiety that inform our contemporary experience, including, though not limited to; racism, fear of violent black revolt, lynching, poverty, mass incarceration, and competition for employment. The term “Red Summer” was first used by James Weldon Johnson to describe the violent attacks against black communities during 1919.

Though the events of the early twentieth century seem to be remote and fading apparitions of an American past; my work is concerned with the power and influence of our shared historical narrative upon the present. The upheaval of Red Summer occurred approximately fifty years after the American Civil War, fifty years before the height of the Civil Rights Era, and three centuries after the first enslaved Africans arrived in English colonies that would become the United States.

The project combines photographs of the contemporary landscape made at or near the site of racial conflict with fragmented selections of contemporaneous newspaper reporting (1917-1923). In many cases, the newsprint images include the surrounding stories or advertisements. The combination of the landscape photograph and the reproduction of newspaper fragments (which invade the contemporary with a narrative from the past), is a rupture and a conversation on the timeline between past and present.

The conceptualization of “the veil” as expressed by DuBois, has been a visual metaphor for the representation of race within my work for several decades; particularly in the two projects known as, Schools for the Colored and Red Summer. The newspaper, in its role as a public record, commentary, and historic archive, is a veil of information through which most of the country as well as many in the international community, understood and misunderstood these events.

Wendel A. White was born in Newark, New Jersey and grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. He was awarded a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York and an MFA in photography from the University of Texas at Austin. White is currently Distinguished Professor of Art at Stockton University, NJ.

Guardians: Spirits of Protection

August 26 - November 2, 2024

The public is cordially invited to an artist's talk on October 23 from 3:30 - 4:30 pm in the Keene Theater followed by a reception in the RC Art Gallery until 6:00 pm.

This fall the Residential College Art Gallery presents Guardians: Spirits of Protection, an exhibition of figurative sculptures. The exhibition will open August 26 – November 2, 2024.

Prof. Ann Savageau will be in residence in the Ann Arbor community and the Residential College from September 16–20 and October 20-25, 2024.

Guardians: Spirits of Protection is a poignant exploration of the healing power of art in the aftermath of unimaginable tragedy. The seventeen life-size figures were created by UC Davis Professor Emerita Ann Savageau. In the aftermath of the deaths of her three children in 2000, 2014 and 2017, Savageau spent 2 ½ years working on the guardians figures to explore the themes of loss, grief, healing and protection.

“I chose the topic of guardians to explore my feelings and to think about how all of us need protection from what’s going on in the world,” Savageau said.

Made from found objects and flotsam from unknown places that washed up on the beach, the sculptures created by Savageau are composites of disparate castoffs, created in response to the tragic events in her life as well as to the pandemic, which began as she was working on the figures.

“The components of the figures are all things that are seen as worthless, with no value, that nobody else wants, but if you put them together, you have a new creation that is a composite of objects from different places. You have created new value and invited viewers to see materials in a new way.”

“On a personal scale, ‘Guardians’ is about building a new life from loss,” said Savageau. “Creating this work helped me cope with my losses and grief. The meditative, incantatory process of building the figures enabled me to direct feelings of grief and loss to a more positive action. I found comfort in the care, thought, love and attention to detail I devoted to their creation. Then came the pandemic and the death of millions around the world, and I knew I had to expand the figures to include everyone who was experiencing loss.”

Ann Savageau is an artist, activist and educator who taught Studio Art at the University of Michigan Residential College from 1978-2002. An early member of Prison Creative Arts Project, she taught a weekly art workshop at Jackson Prison for four years, and afterward, worked to secure the release of several members of the workshop.

Gallery Exhibits 2023-2024

RC Visual Arts Faculty Show

March 4 - April 4, 2024

The public is invited to a closing reception for the artists on April 4th at 5:00 pm.

About the Artists

Megan Gizzi (Lecturer I, Ceramics)

Toby Millman (Lecturer, Drawing and Printmaking) is a multidisciplinary artist living in Hamtramck, working with printmaking, photography, collage, narrative and book arts. She earned her BA from Hampshire College and her MFA from Stamps School of Art and Design and is currently teaching printmaking and drawing at the Residential College.

Raymond Wetzel (Lecturer, Arts and Ideas in the Humanities, Visual Arts): Raymond (Ray) Wetzel has a broad experience as an artist, designer and teacher. He has worked as a set designer for dance companies and artists, an exhibition designer for museums and corporate collections, a cabinet and furniture maker, in addition to running his own exhibition and decorative design business.
He has taught at Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa., The Lloyd hall Scholars Program, the Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor, and has worked with students from the Ann Arbor Public Schools as an artist in schools.
He currently maintains a practice as an artist, cabinet /furniture maker and educator. He is currently on the staff at the College for Creative Studies in the craft department where he has been an integral member since 1996.
Currently, along with his work at CCS, he is an art advisor at Wonderfool Productions. He is a former Board Member for Wonderfool Productions and emeritus member of the Jury Advisory Committee for the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair in the Ann Arbor Community Mr. Wetzel has acted as an awards juror for numerous art organizations. Outside of the studio, he likes dogs, reading, and soccer a lot.

Isaac Wingfield (Visual Arts Program Head, Lecturer, Photography): Isaac Wingfield is Lecturer IV in Photography in the Residential College at the University of Michigan and the Visual Arts program head. A graduate of Appalachian State University’s Watauga College, he completed his graduate studies in Photography at the Rhode Island School of Design. His research explores the impact of mass incarceration through images and the American landscape as the intersection between humans and nature.

The gallery is open from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm Monday - Friday.

PAPER PROTEST

January 17 - February 16, 2024

Justseeds Artists' Cooperative - www.justseeds.org

Paper Protest is an exhibition of approximately 100 prints by members and collaborators of Justseeds Artists' Cooperative. The themes of social and environmental justice connect the work in the exhibition, which includes three collaborative print portfolios, a selection of digital prints from Justseeds’ free graphics library, a number of works from local Justseeds members (Bec Young – Detroit & Nicole Marroquin – Ann Arbor/Chicago) as well as a smaller selection of prints from other members.

The public is invited to a closing reception for the artists on February 16th, from 4:30-6:00 pm.

Artist Talks: Nicole Marroquin, February 13th, 2:30 pm. Bec Young, February 14th, 5:30 pm.

About Justseeds

With members working from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, Justseeds operates both as a unified collaboration of similarly-minded printmakers and as a loose collection of creative individuals with unique viewpoints and working methods. We believe in the transformative power of personal expression in concert with collective action. To this end, we produce collective portfolios, contribute graphics to grassroots struggles for justice, work collaboratively both in and outside the co-op, build large sculptural installations in galleries, and wheatpaste on the streets—all while offering each other daily support as allies and friends.

History

Founded in 1998, and originally the graphics distribution project of Josh MacPhee, Justseeds made the transformation into a worker-owned cooperative in 2007 – the original network being largely in place through past collaborations and friendships. In May 2010, Justseeds moved our distribution center from Portland to a new and larger base in Pittsburgh. We operate an online store and wholesale distribution center, as well as an active, multi-voice blog detailing current art and resistance projects around the world.

The gallery is open from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm Monday - Friday.

BREATHE

October 20 - November 21, 2023

Katie Tremel - www.katetremel.com

The Residential College Art Gallery will present BREATHE, an exhibition of illuminated ceramics by Ann Arbor artist Kate Tremel, from October 20 through November 21. Tremel, who teaches ceramics at the Penny W Stamps School of Art and Design, describes her work in the following way:

“My pots are made with a wooden paddle and round stone. They are slowly raised by beating, turning, and drying the clay repeatedly until the walls are thinly stretched and the form is filled with life. I pierce the fragile, unfired walls of the vessel with a tapered tool and then painstakingly carve the holes with a thin blade. The piercings give visual access to the interior of the form and create a tension with the fragility of the ceramic material. When the pot is illuminated the light fills the vessel and physically embodies the energy that it contains. The piercings allow this energy to flow beyond the walls of the form and into the surrounding space. The soft patterns of light are an exhalation, filling the dark room with a sense of quiet repose. I invite you to stop and take a breath.”

The public is invited to an opening reception for the artist on October 20, from 4-6 pm, and the public is invited.

The gallery is open from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm Monday - Friday.

Play is Work

Curated by Ray Wetzel & John DeHoog

September 5 - October 14, 2023

Katie Hudnall - katiehudnall.com
Ellie Richards - ellie-richards.com
Toomas Toomepuu - toomastoomepuu.com

Work is play.

Creativity is a process. Not a task. Process through practice pursues a multitude of possible outcomes with less than certain outcomes. The creative process is continuous, branching, converging, delivering new connections and creative expressions, conceptual and formal. The point of process is play.

Play allows humans to delve into uncertainty without fear of failure. Understanding process and engaging practice is how we manifest something new, original, and personally meaningful. It is a continuation of the human experience, various and wonderous.

Machine learning programs (AI) search databases for the most fitting data that can be accessed for the assigned task. The genii released from the bottle. A wish, a task fulfilled without the need for connection to the physical world of human imagination, sensory input, dreams, and the infinite number of uncertain ways a connection can be made. A task is a task.

These 3 artists all have found a way to transform the medium they work in through the application of their practice as a continuing process of play as work. Play is hard work.

Sometimes it’s the careful analysis of the position of colors and shapes on a surface that moves and transforms as it changes the shape, form, and function of an object.

Sometimes it’s the remarkable concatenation of shapes and objects, recognizable yet seemingly so haphazardly assembled that it transforms the narrative for each individual who sees it.

Sometimes it’s the sublime variations in form, shape, and colors that recombine over and over in related yet impossibly different ways.

Sometimes…

Come see for yourself as the work of Ellie Richards, Katie Hudnall and Toomas Toomepuu is presented at the Residential College Art Gallery this fall.

The artists will be present on October 11 for a presentation and Q & A at Eastern Michigan University. Come meet them and join the discussion as they discuss the relevance of creative play and process in their work.

The gallery is open from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm Monday - Friday.

Gallery Exhibits 2022-2023

Sense of Self: The Islamic Contemporary

Curated by Sascha Crasnow

February 17 - March 31, 2023

Despite recent panels and scholarship aiming to dispel the notion, there is a conception that contemporary art and religion are incompatible. When paired with the Islamophobic sentiment that Islam is destructive, rather than constructive like artistic practices, and that it even forbids many forms of artistic production, there is a presumption that contemporary art that engages with Islam as religion and faith (rather than simply as identity) cannot exist. There is an additional assumption that those who identify as women, queer, trans, and non-binary are unlikely to engage with Islam in their work outside of critique, because of the belief that Islam is inherently (and uniquely) oppressive of and therefore contradictory to individuals who identify as such. In an attempt to disabuse viewers of these notions, as well as give a space of exploration to these often overlooked or excluded voices, this exhibition brings together women, queer, trans, and non-binary Muslim artists who explore their connection to religion, their other identities (be those related to their race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or status as artists), and their practices.

Featuring work by:

Yasmine Diaz: http://www.yasminediaz.com/
Yasmine Kasem: http://www.yasminekkasem.com/
Nour Ballout: https://www.nourballout.com/bio
Manal Shoukair: https://www.instagram.com/h2ocolors/?hl=en
Saba Taj: https://www.itssabataj.com/
Arshia Fatima Haq: https://arshiahaq.com/

Carl Wilson: PRINTWORK

Open for viewing at the Residential College Art Gallery!

January 6 - February 8, 2023

Carl Wilson is known for his stark black and white linocut prints. The self-taught artist sees himself as a documentarian of lives easily ignored in a world obsessed with materialism and celebrity. His work frequently highlights not only the strength found in conquering the everyday and mundane but also the pain and defeat of those not able to rise to the occasion. His love of film noir and pulp fiction novels from the nineteen forties and fifties has led him to experiment with minimalist animation and comic book illustration. He embraces the whimsy hidden in the darkness.

Carl is the recipient of a 2013 Kresge Artist Fellowship and is an alumnus of the historic Yaddo Artists’ Community. During his residency there he carved the prints for, and wrote the book, Her Purse Smelled like JuicyFruit, a recollection of his mother’s life. Carl was named the 2014 guest curator of Detroit’s Carr Center. Also in 2014 Complex Online Magazine named him one of Twenty Detroit Artists You Should Know. He was featured in Essay'd, a monthly publication about Detroit artists. In 2017 Carl's work was a part of Detroit's contribution to The Saint-Etienne Design Biennale in France. 2017 also saw the release of a comic book, the first installment of his graphic novel, Dead & Lost in Detroit. The spring of 2018 saw Carl complete a residency at MacDowell in New Hampshire. While there he finished the writing and illustration of his graphic novel and currently the book is in negotiation for publication. The year has also seen the completion of a ten-print collection based on James Weldon Johnson's Prodigal Son poetry. It was commissioned by Calvin College and Dr. Larry Gerbens.

Learn more about Carl's work: https://www.carlwilsonart.com

The gallery is open from 10am to 5pm Monday - Friday.

Fall 22’ Student Art Show

December 2022

Works of art are on display from the Studio Arts and the Arts and the Humanities classes ending this term. Work from ceramics, photography, printmaking, and sculpture courses are represented.

The opening on December 2, 2022, featured music from Residential College music ensembles directed by Katri Ervamaa. The artwork selection includes a broad selection of materials and techniques. From screen printing to film photography, to cold casting and ceramic sculpture there is something for everyone to see.

The gallery is open from 10am to 5pm Monday - Friday.

Gallery Exhibits: 2022

Mending

An exhibition of selected works by Jeanne Bieri.

January 21 - March 18, 2022

Inspired by women who worked with and communicated in quilts, Mending is an exhibit that blends the deeply personal stories of our lives as individuals with the universal language of quilts and blankets. Mending is an ode to the art of the hand stitch; as Bieri’s work brings layers and patterns to army blankets and recycled materials, she is creating a story of making, restructuring, and mending. Through meticulous hand work and circulating patterns, Jeanne joins together the disparate elements of her work. The process of restoring and saving discarded elements and preserving the unique histories of the materials found in the tactile surfaces remain an inspiration in her daily work practice.

Communicating a sense of unity, sturdiness, and fusion through its manipulation of textiles and hand stitching, Mending can be viewed in the RC Art Gallery in East Quad from January 21 through March 18, 2022.

Jeanne earned her MFA in Painting from Wayne State University and later taught at U-M Dearborn. Her work has been exhibited throughout Michigan and the Midwest with career highlights including a Kresge Fellowship in 2017 and a Michigan Council for the Arts Grant in 2019.

A reception will be held on February 11, 4-6 pm EST. All are welcome!

Kristina Sheufelt: Here Nor There

September 9 - October 14, 2022

Here Nor There is a new solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist and environmentalist Kristina Sheufelt. Sheufelt is based in Detroit, Michigan, and recently received her MFA from the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design. In Here Nor There, Sheufelt uses a variety of media to blur the lines between land and body.

For the past several years, Sheufelt has spent her summers living in remote backcountry locations throughout the United States working on research projects ranging from self-directed study of emotional psychology in the wilderness to monitoring marine wildlife populations. In Here Nor There, Sheufelt processes the emotional and ecological implications of returning to life in the city between reunions with the wild.

Kristina Sheufelt received her BFA from the College for Creative Studies in 2013 and her MFA from the University of Michigan in 2022.

Her recent thesis exhibition, titled A Wind From Noplace, received the Jean Paul Slusser 'best in show' award and an International Sculpture Center Outstanding Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture award.

Winter 22’ Student Art Show

Open for viewing at the Residential College Art Gallery!

Now through April 22, 2022

Works of art are on display from the Studio Arts and the Arts and the Humanities classes ending this term. Work from ceramics, photography, printmaking, and sculpture courses are represented as well as work from the How to Think About : Humanities (CE) Art course program.

The opening on April 8, 2022, featured music from Residential College music ensembles directed by Katri Ervamaa. The artwork selection includes a broad selection of materials and techniques. From screen printing to film photography, to cold casting and ceramic sculpture there is something for everyone to see.

The gallery is open from 10am to 5pm Monday - Friday.

Gallery Exhibits 2020-2021

Animal/Vegetable/Mineral Art Exhibit

Works by Susan Crowell, RC and Stamps faculty member in Ceramics

October 1 - November 12, 2021

In this RC Art Gallery exhibit, Residential College and Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design Professor of Art Susan Crowell presents, among other works, a series of wall plaques depicting endangered species.

In Professor Crowell's effort to, "...question our interactions with the animal world and our impact upon it," she has installed images of elephants and donkeys as protagonists and antagonists in political struggle, and polar bears as victims of global warming.

"Animal/Vegetable/Mineral presents an occasion to speak about my most compelling interests—plants and animals—within the mineral rubrics of clay," she says.

This event is free and open to the public. Masks are required for all attendees. Vaccination is not required but highly encouraged. All attendees must complete a short questionnaire at https://responsiblue.umich.edu/sign-in before entering East Quadrangle.

Images of Incarceration

February 21 - April 9, 2020

The exhibition features the work of two artists addressing the issues that surround the prison industrial complex.

Steph Foster is an interdisciplinary artist specializing in photography, with interests in video, installations, music, digital fabrication, sculpture and performance. Steph recently received his MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. His recent work combines sounds and music with visual media to tell stories of mass incarceration and reconciliation within urban communities.

Ashley Hunt is an artist and activist who uses video, photography, mapping and writing to engage social movements, modes of learning and public discourse. Among his interests are structures that allow people to accumulate power and those which keep others from getting power, while learning from the ways that people come to know, respond to and conceive of themselves within these structures. Rather than seeing art and activism as two exclusive spheres of practice, he approaches them as complimentary, drawing upon the ideas of social movements and cultural theory alike — the theories and practices of each informing the other and pushing their limitations.

Jan 2020: The Indexical Print, Andrew Thompson, Lecturer at Stamps School of Art & Design, curates the exhibition The Indexical Print, and includes artists Cathryn Amidei, Jason Ferguson, Jay Fox, Ruth Koelewyn, Jeffrey Lancaster, Lee Marchalonis and Ellen Rutt. This multimedia exhibition of contemporary art references art critic Rosalind Krauss’s 1977 essay “Notes on the Index” with a focus on printmaking and other methods of image replication and reproduction that follow printmaking’s lead. Read the artist statement and biography information about the curator and artists here.

Gallery Exhibits 2018-2019

December 2019:

If we were ___________, this would be ________________.

a student exhibition brought to you by rcarts

Opens on December 6 with a reception serving local baked goods and snacks from 4:30-6pm.

On display until Dec. 17. Gallery hours 10-5pm, Monday through Friday.

Students can pick up work Dec. 19 & 20.

Nov 2019: Blood Underwater, a process and exhibition led by Elshafei Dafalla, is a collaborative work, which encourages deep thinking and creative expression. It provides a voice for community members and activists, especially from political, national, racial, religious and other minorities, to express their concerns about global suffering through art. You can learn more about this exhibit and residency here.

This visiting artist residency was made possible with support from Arts at Michigan.

Oct 2019: The Studio Art Program welcomes Fulgencio Lazo as a visiting artist. Read more about his visit here. Lazo is a Zapotec/Mixtec artist who works predominantly with acrylics on canvas in his studios in Seattle and in his hometown of Oaxaca, Mexico. For more than 26 years he has been working with museums, art centers and community groups to create “tapetes" or carpets of colored sand for Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations. These installations are collaboratively designed and installed with community members over the course of several days.

Sept 2019: Cynthia Sowers, Retired Residential College Arts and Ideas in the Humanities Faculty Member Show

Daughters of Memory: Paintings and Poems on the Nine Muses

September 2 - 27, 2019
Reception for the artist September 6, ~4:30pm

Read the artist statement for this exhibition.

Read the artist's reflections and notes on the exhibition.

Listen to Cindy on #theRCPodcast here.

Feb 2019: John DeHoog: Householdments - Furniture and Design

February 21 through April 4
Reception for the artist Thursday, February 21, 4-6pm
Gallery talk 4:30pm February 21
Read the artist's statement
Read the artist's Q&A about this exhibition
Read the artist's curriculum vitae

Jan 2019: Elizabeth Youngblood, Mixed-media artist

January 10 through February 14
Reception for the artist Wednesday, January 16, 4-6 pm
Gallery talk 4:30 pm January 16. Refreshments will be served.
Q & A with the artist can be found here.

About the Art Gallery

The Residential College Art Gallery serves the broader mission of engaged and interdisciplinary learning common to other programs in the Residential College. The gallery seeks to provide aesthetically compelling exhibitions that actively engage the community in questions of cultural, artistic, and social relevance.

Each semester the gallery holds two professional art exhibitions of four to six weeks duration, along with one show of student artwork from within the Residential College. The gallery primarily supports the Residential College Studio Arts Program through exhibitions of contemporary art in a range of disciplines that reflect the diversity of the program.

The recently renovated 500 square foot gallery is suitable for both traditional exhibitions and alternative site-specific installations. For more information or to explore the possibility of exhibiting your work, please contact the Residential College.

Join the RC Art Gallery email list here.