2019-2020 Visiting Artist Series
March 4, 2020
"Chine-Colle & Quick Color" Artist Lecture & Workshop by Printmaker, Ashley Taylor
The Kansas State University Department of Art will present an artist talk and workshop combo by Ashley Taylor on Wednesday, March 4 from 2:30-5:20 pm in Willard 319/320.
Admission is free and open to the public. Funded by K-State SGA Fine Arts Fee.
Sore Loser, Screenprint Monoprint, 2019
Website: ashley.taylor@ucf.edu
Artist Biography
Ashley Taylor is an artist and designer from Port St. Lucie, FL. She received her MFA in Studio Art with an emphasis in printmaking from the University of Florida and her BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Central Florida. She has exhibited nationally and has curated shows on printmaking and new technology.
Research
It's a power play. The conversation replays over and over. Superficial moments connect to create the painful theatre of social life. Navigating these bitter swamps, one discovers the mad have been set free.
In the company of the unrelenting, social experience has become a commodity for satire. There is a pleasure to be found in their self-absorbed, narcissistic, inconsiderate behavior. Mutating into the grotesque, there is an attraction to their foolish actions but also a shocking disgust with their selfishness and cruelty. These characters are ugly in their behavior and must be recorded as such. Direct experience and observation of present social culture and norms drive the work. Pushing beyond grotesque representation, my work is a commentary on the psychological effects of trying to assimilate into their twisted social graces.
My appetite is for social commentary, through the graphic nature of mark and print arts, I feel very connected to the legacy and long historical tradition of satire. This research is informed by the writings by Guy Debord, Lauren Rabinowitz, Aaron James and inspired by Desidirus Erasmus' A Praise of Folly as well as the prints of artists Warrington Colescott, William Hogarth, and James Gillray.
March 2, 2020
Artist Lecture & Workshop by Designer and Printmaker, Sam Pierson
The Kansas State University Department of Art will present an artist talk and workshop combo by K-State alum Sam Pierson on Monday, March 2 from 2:30-5:20 pm in Willard 319/320, as well as an artist talk at 5:30pm at at the Town Hall Auditorium in Leadership Studies Building.
Admission is free and open to the public. Funded by K-State SGA Fine Arts Fee.
Seek and Destroy, Micron ink pen on Strathmore drawing paper, January 2020
Website: www.spierson.com
Sam Pierson is a professional artist, illustrator and designer whose work has been exhibited nationally as well as abroad. His introduction to art started at a young age, drawing action figures and WWF wrestling heros of the 90's. In his early teen years, he was captivated by the intense subculture based graphics of skateboarding, snowboarding and music.
After graduating from Kansas State University in 2013 with a BFA in graphic design and printmaking he decided to move his creative endeavors to the Rockies. Where he currently works out of his home studio in Denver, Colorado as a freelance designer and Illustrator. Creating his visions of design with shocking, rebellious, iconic imagery to capture the attention of a viewer and slap them in the face with a dose of radical. Staying try to lowbrow DIY design ethos of taking the standards of design rules and breaking them to make something outside of the box. When not working on freelance design work you can find him printing his lowbrow t-shirt designs and creating new work for gallery shows. He is also one of the co-founders of the Alien Ghost Collective.
February 9-29, 2019
"Darren Lee Miller, Reflections" exhibition installation by Darren Lee Miller
The Kansas State University Department of Art presents Darren Lee Miller installation "Darren Lee Miller, Reflections" starting Monday, February 10 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, Willard 116.
Admission is free and open to the public. Funded by K-State SGA Fine Arts Fee.
On The Bottom, 2019
Archival Inkjet Print
Website: darrenleemiller.com
We tell the same stories over and over, repurposing the players to create new meaning, but often the older associations remain close to the surface. Taking my cues from metaphors and symbols seen in ancient mythology, renaissance painting, TV commercials, drag performances, and contemporary politics, I undermine the power dynamics and roles that exist within depicted relationships to remind the viewer of familiar stories, but also to challenge expected meaning.
With these archetypal tales in mind, I invite my collaborators to share their insecurities, anxieties, and strengths, without fear of judgment. Using ordinary objects and our own bodies we create totems or perform new rituals for the camera, to help us venture into a shared dream space. Sometimes we appear together in the images, and other times one of us is seen alone. We make empathic connections with one another, and by extension with the viewer. Sexuality, fantasy, desire, and decorum inform the recorded interactions.
My work ranges from the simultaneously homosocial, homoerotic, and homophobic, to the flamboyant, patriarchal, and historic. I work to ensnare the viewer in a psychological space of projection and identification. I am using thinly-veiled, sometimes humorous allusions to power, to uncover and undermine mainstream myths of normativity. The resulting images depict moments that are both seductive and repulsive, familiar and strange.
November 6-7, 2019
"Atmosphere & Ornament" Artist Talk by Ceramist Mike Stumbas
The Kansas State University Department of Art will present an artist talk by Mike Stumbas on Wednesday, November 6 from 10:00-11:00am in Willard 028.
Workshops:
- Wednesday, November 6th | 1pm-5pm | South Corridor of Willard Ground Floor near Willard 028
- Thursday, November 7th | 9am-4pm | South Corridor of Willard Ground Floor near Willard 028
Admission is free and open to the public. Funded by K-State SGA Fine Arts Fee.
Urn Pair, 2018
Cone 10, reduction soda fired porcelain, unglazed. Wheel thrown and hand built with slip trailed and water etched embellishments. 10.5"x6"x6" ea.
Stumbras was born in Chicago, Illinois. He studied at St. Olaf College, and received a BFA and a BS in 2007. Stumbras received an MFA in Ceramics from Louisiana State University in 2017. Stumbras has exhibited work nationally and internationally. He is currently living and working in Kansas City, Missouri.
Mike Stumbras makes ceramic vessels that are inspired by 18th and 19th century European production ware. The historical objects of his affection are are iconic, optimistic, and present a criterion for western beauty that seems empty in regards to contemporary concerns about the human condition. Stumbras embraces the chaotic and imperfect nature of soda firing and handcraft with an emphasis on making ceremonial vessels that speak to the passage of time and embrace the propensity for ceramic vessels to be heirloom objects.The soda firing process can often appear to be as technically complex as the results are beautiful. However, one of the best ways to learn to easily incorporate difficult firing practices into your artistic repertoire involves firsthand firing experience. In this workshop, students will learn about and participate in the firing of a Cone 10 reduction soda kiln.
October 21-November 8
"Recent Constructs 2017-19" Exhibition Installation by Armin Mühsam
The Kansas State University Department of Art presents Armin Mühsam installation "Recent Constructs 2017-19" starting Monday, October 21 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, Willard 116. He will be holding an artist talk on October 29 at 2:45 pm in the gallery.
Admission is free and open to the public. Funded by K-State SGA Fine Arts Fee.
Armin Mühsam graduated with a BFA from the University of Applied Sciences in Munich, Germany (1994) and earned his MFA from Montana State University in Bozeman (1997). He has taught at Northwest Missouri State University since 2000, where he is currently Professor of Painting.
Mühsam is a recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and has been the subject of over fifty solo exhibitions in the United States, Germany, France, Romania, and Hungary. His work has been reviewed and featured in Art Papers and New American Paintings. Mühsam lives and maintains a studio in Kansas City; he is represented by Ambacher Contemporary in Munich, Germany, and Haw Contemporary in Kansas City.
October 21, 2019
"Tiger on the Wall" Artist Talk with Ray DiCapua
The Kansas State University Department of Art will present an artist talk by Ray DiCapua on Monday, October 21 from 1:00-2:00pm at Mark A. Chapman Gallery, Willard 116.
Admission is free and open to the public. Funded by K-State SGA Fine Arts Fee.
Children of Alleppo No longer Cry
(Detail) Vine Charcoal on Paper, 144x132", 2017
Ray DiCapua makes large-scale, intricate drawings that investigate the connections between imagery and processes of perception, recognition, and meaning-making. As the senses receive raw data, he is curious about how that raw data turns into story, history, and belief patterns, the experience of self and other and our lived and imagined realities.
DiCapua's recent exhibition venues include: The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, the Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA, the Museum of Southwest Texas, Corpus Christi, TX, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, the Baker Museum, Artis--Naples, FL, Ackland Museum of Art, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Kansas State University's Chapman Gallery, Manhattan, KS
"Wig Heavier Than A Boot" Artist Talk with Photography David Johnson
The Kansas State University Department of Art will present an artist talk by Photographer David Johnson and Poet Philip Matthews at 9am on Thursday, October 3, 2019 in 204 Willard Hall.
Admission is free and open to the public. Funded by K-State SGA Fine Arts Fee.
Wig Heavier Than A Boot brings together photography by David Johnson and poetry by Philip Matthews. Revealing Petal—a drag persona as whom Philip manifests to write, and David photographs—the project crosses art-making rituals with isolated performances within domestic spaces and pastoral landscapes. Taken together, the resulting photographs and poems reveal dynamic relationships between author, character, and observer. By articulating a specific creative process in which one identity becomes two, the project in turn opens up a conversation about gender expression through an art-historical lens.
The photographs provide one record of author and character, blurring art-historical masculine and feminine postures. The poems provide another, which elaborate upon the lived experience of being, modeling, and sometimes, obscuring Petal. Subverting the ekphrastic literary tradition, Philip's poems do not respond to David's photographs, nor vice-versa. Both forms are made in the present: as David directs the shoot, Philip makes performance notes that give way to the poem. The photographs capture the blend or distinction between Philip and Petal, and the poems hybridize their perspectives, enacting a relationship that is surreal, empowering, and unbearable, as the project title suggests. What is constant is a sense of a person wanting to belong to the place that hosts them (e.g. farmland in rural Wisconsin, the coast of North Carolina, an art museum in St. Louis, a small church), even or especially when the social norms of that place are felt to ostracize them. Both photographs and poems balance narrative with fragmentation and invite multiple interpretations.
Artist Biography
David Johnson is an artist, educator, and curator based in Iowa City, IA. He received an MFA in Visual Art from Washington University in St. Louis in 2007 and earned his BFA in Studio Art with an emphasis in Photography from Texas Christian University. In 2011, David was awarded the Great Rivers Visual Arts Award from the Gateway Foundation. This biennial award culminated with his 2012 exhibition institutional etiquette and strange overtones at the Contemporary Art Museum in Saint Louis. Johnson's Monograph Wig Heavier Than A Boot, was published in 2019 by Kris Graves Projects.
His photographs have been exhibited internationally, including the Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis, Mildred Lane Kemper Museum, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, National Building Museum in Washington D.C. and Rathaus in Stuttgart, Germany. His work can be found in the collection at The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. Aint-Bad, Don't Take Pictures, the Humble Arts Foundation, Lenscratch, Photo-emphasis and Fraction Magazine have featured his work. David has curated exhibitions for Center of Creative Arts, Paul Artspace and the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in St Louis. Currently, Johnson is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Photography at The University of Iowa.
davidjohnsonstudio.com | @davidjohnsonstudio
Philip Matthews is a poet from eastern North Carolina and the author of Witch (Alice James Books, forthcoming April 2020) and Wig Heavier Than A Boot, (Kris Graves Projects, September 2019). Individual poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, Tusculum Review, Denver Quarterly, Connotation Press, Sonora Review, and elsewhere. Anchored by site-specific meditation and performance, his practice investigates spiritual, queer power, eco-consciousness, and questions of home. He is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Hemera Foundation, and Wormfarm Institute. He has lectured at Washington University in St. Louis and the Kansas City Art Institute, and from 2013-16, he organized public programs at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, emphasizing cross-disciplinary collaboration, artist-driven thinking, and community-directed action. He received his MFA Writing from Washington University in St. Louis and BA English from Tulane University.
philipandpetal.com | @philipandpetal
"Leave Room" Artist Talk with Kelly John Clark
The Kansas State University Department of Art will present an artist talk by Kelly John CLark at 5:30pm on Tuesday, October 1, 2019 at the Leadership Studies Building, 114 Town Hall.
Admission is free and open to the public. Funded by K-State SGA Fine Arts Fee.
Mushroom Blanket, 2015
Colored Pencil on Paper
"I like drawings through and through because they begin the same way for everyone, with paper and a place to sit. I like how the paper is thin and fragile because it asks the viewer to be more of a custodian than a consumer. I even like the word itself, because a drawing being drawn is like a raincloud raining or a sailboat sailing. I prefer to exhibit my drawings unglazed on slanted tabletops. This is how I am used to seeing them as I work on them at my desk, and so it is their nature to be seen this way."
Kelly John Clark lives and works in Kansas City, Missouri. He primarily makes colored pencil drawings on paper, though he also writes and maintains ongoing collaborative projects with other artists. Kelly received his MFA in Printmaking, which he taught for 8 years before becoming a letter carrier for the US Postal Service. Having hung up his mailbag, Kelly is currently the Curatorial Assistant the Mid America Arts Alliance.
September 26, 2019
"Louisiana Trail Riders" Artist Talk with Photographer Jeremiah Ariaz
The Kansas State University Department of Art will present an artist talk by Jeremiah Ariaz, Photographer, at 2:30pm on Thursday, September 26, 2019 at the Beach Museum near the "Louisiana Trail Riders" installation.
Admission is free and open to the public. Funded by K-State SGA Fine Arts Fee.
Father and Son, (Cecilia, LA) 2015
Archival Pigment Print
Jeremiah Ariaz is a Professor at Louisiana State University. His artworks explore the West as both a physical space and a terrain for the imagination. With photographic exhibitions Ariaz brings scrutiny to popular representations while revealing alternative narratives that have been under-represented in history.
His current project Louisiana Trail Riders has garnered critical acclaim. For the photographs Ariaz was named the 2018 Louisiana State Fellow and awarded the 2018 Southern Arts Finalist Prize from South Arts. He was also the recipient of the 2018 Michael P. Smith Award for Documentary Photography from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, a Community Partnership Grant from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, and an ATLAS grant.
A monograph of the work titled Louisiana Trail Riders was released last fall from UL Press and has been featured in the Paris Review, U.S. News and World Report, Oxford American, among others.
Artist Website:
www.JeremiahAriaz.com
The Kansas State University Department of Art will present a design talk by Von Glitschka at 1 pm on Tuesday, September 24, 2019 in 114 Town Hall in the Leadership Studies Building.
Admission is free and open to the public. Funded by K-State SGA Fine Arts Fee.
Everyone regardless of their specific field of expertise has the capacity to be creative. Everyone has been creative at one point or another. But often pursuing creativity means dealing with an uncomfortable feeling of intimidation and fear. Being creative literally means thinking at a higher level and that is hard to sustain or accomplish when fear sets in. This talk is about encouraging creative moments, exploring inspiration and developing a strategy of creative curiosity that embraces the fear associated with it and allows you to unlock creativity and discover a new realm of creative thinking so you can make creativity more sustainable.
Von is creative director of Glitschka Studios a small two-person boutique design firm located in the Pacific Northwest. Their diverse range of illustrative design is sought after by some of the most respected brands in the world. They creatively collaborate with ad agencies, design firms, in-house corporate art departments, and small businesses to produce engaging visual narratives.
Von has authored six books on design and branding and is the creator and producer of design courses for Linkedin Learning.
Website:
www.GlitschkaStudios.com
www.DrawingVectorGraphics.com
www.DVGLab.com
@vonster
September 16-October 4, 2019
"Cloud Nine" Exhibition Installation by Sharon Que
The Kansas State University Department of Art presents Sharon Que installation "Cloud Nine" starting Monday, September 16 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, Willard 116. She will be holding an artist talk on September 3 at 10:15am in Willard 220.
Admission is free and open to the public. Funded by K-State SGA Fine Arts Fee.
Quiet Revolution 1, 15"x20"x4"
Wood, Cast Bronze, Paint
Born Sharon Querciagrossa in Detroit, Michigan, Sharon has resided and worked in the Detroit area throughout her career. With much of her and her family's history rooted in the automotive industry, many of her works combine traditional and industrial materials. Que received a BFA from the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, and the following year, began an apprenticeship in the Wood Model Making program at General Motors. She states "In this apprenticeship I developed my skills of precision woodworking and the ability to analyze forms in two and three dimensions." After General Motors, she worked as a violin making assistant for the Curtain and Alf studio, before establishing her own business as a luthier, building and restoring antique violins and violas.
Que's works are part of the permanent collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts and in numerous private collections, as well as a public sculpture commission on the campus of Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan. Her works have been exhibited in Venice, Italy; San Francisco; and Chicago, as well as extensively in the metro Detroit area.
Artist student talk: 10:15 am, September 3, 2019, Willard 220
This event is presented and funded by KSU SGA Fine Arts Fee.
August 20-September 12, 2019
"Typographic Vision(s)" Exhibition Installation by Virginia Green & Prof. Mervi Pakaste
The Kansas State University Department of Art presents Virginia Green, and K-State's Graphic Design Professor, Mervi Pakaste's Letterpress installation "Typographic Vision(s)" starting Tuesday, August 20th in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, Willard 116.
Admission is free and open to the public. Funded by K-State SGA Fine Arts Fee.
Down the Rabbit Hole (Detail), Virgina Green, Letterpress 2019
Limelicious (detail), Mervi Pakaste, Letterpress 2019
"Typographic Vision(s)" is two-person exhibition featuring our recent explorations in typography through letterpress and book arts.
During this time of an onslaught of screens, we wish to offer people an opportunity for quiet exploration and discovery of typography and its possibilities for expression. Typography is one of the main components of visual communication, carrying within it a long history and tradition. Our work explores the tactile and historical assets of type in contemporary fashion. The juxtaposition of traditional and contemporary helps us create visual intrigue that is difficult to achieve through digital media. We aim to create visual dialogue through the versatile use of typography and the materials. Part of the magic is the tactile experience we go through during the printing and binding processes. The physicality that is involved in of setting type, operating a press or binding a book, creates a bond between the work and the maker, which is then in turn, passed on to the viewer. For the viewers, this exhibition is an occasion to experience typography in a different fashion.
Closing Reception: Thursday, September 12 from 4:30-6pm
This event is presented and funded by KSU SGA Fine Arts Fee.
View archives of Visiting Artists:
2018-2019 Visiting Artist Series
2017-2018 Visiting Artist Series
2016-2017
Visiting Artist Series
2015-2016 Visiting Artist Series
2014-2015 Visiting Artist Series