Department of Art & Art History - School of Arts & Sciences

The study of art at the university level, embedded in the ideals of a liberal arts education, allows students to develop both their creativity and their critical faculties through visual media. Visual and Media Arts Practice and Art History have separate curricula, but links between the two, and other disciplines, are encouraged.

News

Exhibition: A suite of works on paper "49 Ways of Being There" by Professor Tanja Softic is on view at Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro. Weatherspoon Art on Paper Biennial celebrates contemporary art in which the use of paper-either as surface or material-is a primary concern. Since 1965 the Weatherspoon's Art on Paper exhibition has charted a history of contemporary art through outstanding works on paper. Softic uses languages of printmaking, drawing, photography, and poetic text to explore questions of cultural belonging, hybridity, and memory.

Film Screening: Professor Drummond’s new film Dark Holler (2018), collaboration with David Poolman; Professor of Art at Sheridan College, Ontario, will be presented as part of PF-Sacale la miel's Pantala Fantasma Festival, Jan 21-23 (Donostia, Basque Country/Spain). https://pantallafantasma.hotglue.me/

Record Release: Professor Drummond’s new album Old Time Mountain Music, a collaboration with David Poolman; Professor of Art at Sheridan College, Ontario, has been released. This limited-edition vinyl record is composed of environmental soundscapes, field recordings, sound collages, and re-interpretations of tradition music as produced and documented by Never Met A Stranger (Jeremy Drummond & David Poolman) throughout central Appalachia. https://www.nevermetastranger.org/

Harrison Moenich: Digital/media arts technician and Nene Diallo UR'18 have been awarded an artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center.

Faculty Highlights

Smith Participates in For Freedoms¿50 State Initiative
Art professor Sable Elyse Smith, in partnership with 1708 Gallery as part of the For Freedoms–50 State Initiative, created a billboard in Richmond's Jackson Ward neighborhood.
Nelson Exhibition
Art professor Brittany Nelson's exhibition with Danishta Rivera, Warm Worlds and Otherwise, is currently on view in the Harnett Gallery, University Museums.
Smith Exhibition
Art professor Sable Elyse Smith will present a solo exhibition, BOLO Be on (the) lookout, at JTT Gallery in New York City.
Smith Exhibition
Art professor Sable Elyse Smith's work was included in SITElines.2018: Casa tomada, an exhibition presented by SITE Santa Fe.
Waller Article
University Museums' director Richard Waller published "The Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center @ 17" in the October 2018 quarterly issue of The Journal of the Print World.
Softic Print Commissioned
Art professor Tanja Softic was commissioned to create a print for Re-Riding History, an exhibition at the Trout Gallery at Dickinson College.
Calvillo Book
Art history professor Elena Calvillo published the book Almost Eternal: Painting on Stone and Material Innovation in Early Modern Europe.
Smith Feature
Sable Elyse Smith, a new faculty member in Visual Media and Arts Practice, had her work featured in an article in Art in America magazine.
Harrison Moenich awarded artist residency
Harrison Moenich, digital/media arts technician in the Department of Art and Art History, has been awarded an artist residency in January 2019 to attend the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont.
Softic Exhibition
Four of Tanja Softic's prints were curated into the International Print Triennial exhibition in Krakow that opens in July.