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Prior 2015 News & Events

I am a Verb in the Shadows, Walking: Artist Clarissa Sligh

5:00 PM, March 24, 2015, Smith Hall, Room 130

Clarissa Sligh, multimedia artist and writer who works with text, photography, artist’s books, and installations, will speak about her life and work. Sligh’s visit to the University of Delaware coincides with Mechanical Hall Gallery exhibition, Forget Me Not: Photography between Poetry and Politics, which includes three of her artist’s books.

For more than twenty-five years, Clarissa Sligh has woven together the cultural, historical, personal and political to consider themes of memory, transmutation, and perceptions of boundaries and identity—themes that have roots in her own experiences. When she was fifteen-years old she became the lead plaintiff in the 1955 school desegregation case in Virginia (Clarissa Thompson et. al. vs. Arlington County School Board). From that moment forward, her work as a student and as a professional has challenged obstacles and fostered change and transformation.

Equity in education, social justice, and prejudice are among subjects explored in two of Sligh’s works on view: Reading Dick and Jane with Me, 1989 and It Wasn’t Little Rock, 2005. Sligh’s early work gained her recognition as an artist who unflinchingly explored ideas that often challenged traditional values or common assumptions. Her work continues to illustrate the power of art to transform life.

A recipient of awards and fellowships including the Leeway Foundation’s Art and Change Grant (2006), Anonymous Was a Woman (2001), Andrea Frank Foundation (2000), and National Endowment for the Arts (1988), Sligh has also received multiple grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She was the recipient of the Annual Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography in1995 for the use of photography with other media, and the Annual President’s Award from the National Women’s Caucus for Art in 1994.

Sligh was born in Washington, D.C., grew up in Arlington, Virginia, and lived in New York City for 30 years. She currently lives and works in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. She has held teaching appointments at New York University, the School of Visual Art and the University of Pennsylvania.

Sligh’s visit to the University of Delaware is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences’ Paul R. Jones Initiative and the University Museums. Her lecture, “I am a Verb in the Shadows, Walking,” is part of the Art Department’s Visiting Artist & Designer series, begins at 5:00 PM in Smith Hall, Room 130. Sligh’s lecture is open to the public and free of charge.

Image credit: Voyage(r): A Tourist Map to Japan, 2000 © Clarissa Sligh. Detail from artist’s book.

34th Annual Black Maria Film Festival

34th Annual Black Maria Film Festival at the University of Delaware Tuesday, March 10, 2015 5-7 pm Smith Hall Room 130.

Open to the Public. Free Admission.

The screening will be presented by Jane Steuerwald, director of the festival.

Since 1981, the annual Black Maria Film Festival, an international juried competition and award tour, has been fulfilling its mission to advocate, exhibit and reward cutting edge works from independent moving image makers. The festival is known for its national public exhibition program, which features a variety of bold contemporary works drawn from the annual collection of award winning films and videos.

Screening Program:

  • Jaya by Puja Maewal (19 min.)
  • A Pirate Named Ned by Steve Gentile (8 min.)
  • In Port by Catherine Axley (11 min.)
  • SoundPrint by Monteith McCollum (8 min.)
  • Egghead by Patrick Longstreth (1 min.)
  • Swallowed Whole by Heidi Kumao (4 min.)
  • Ideas That Are Grand (Así de Grandes son las Ideas) by Jose Enrique Rivera Rivera, (5 min.)
  • The Stick Maker by Curtis Albucher (4 min.)
  • Lightning In The Hand by Joey Grossfield (15 min.)
  • Where We Stand by Lindsay McIntyre (5 min.)
  • Self Portrait Portrait by James Hollenbaugh (6 min.)
  • The Ballad of Holland Island House by Lynn Tomlinson (4 min.)

Colleen McCubbin Stepanic

Colleen McCubbin Stepanic, "Reconstructed": March 3- 27th, Recitation Gallery.

UPDATE: Reception and gallery talk: Tuesday, March 24th, 6:00 pm in Recitation Gallery.

My painting explores the possibilities of physically representing emotional experience. In doing so I disregard the flat plain and engage in a number of aggressive actions against the basic fiber of painting. I cut and rip apart canvases. I attack the surface with paint, with scissors, and with thread. These works utilize geological references as a starting point for tactile, physically intrusive works. I am interested in the parallels I see between geological processes and human experience. I draw links between the ways in which earth is built up, saved, and destroyed, (sediment, erosion, and earthquake) and the way our own life events are similarly built up, saved and destroyed (accumulating personal experiences, flawed memories, and traumatic life events.)

Repetitive actions play an important role in my process. 10,000 staples hold torn paper. 7,000 pieces of canvas cut to the same shape form a surface. Millions of machine stitches hold the canvas together. These actions are part of the labor critical to my art making. Li

ke a mantra or a rote prayer this activity builds the intensity of the experience for both the creator and viewer.

Before they become the materials for my sculptural forms these canvases were my paintings. They were records of my observations and experiences. I highly value the role of observational drawing and painting as a means of gaining greater understanding of the things I see and experience. While the original whole is lost in creating the final works records of it exist through the pieces the viewer sees and through my memory.

Benjamin Gallegos

Congratulations are in order for student Ben Gallegos.

One from a series of images completed for a personal project/road series book was selected for the Society of Illustrators 2015 Student Scholarship Competition exhibition and catalog.

Last year only 300/8700 entries were selected. This year 2,275 students participated - representing 86 colleges, universities and art schools nationwide.

Here is the link giving you an overview of the competition. Here is the professional jury.

  • March 30: Jury for financial awards
  • Friday May 8: Awards and opening reception
  • May 6 - May 30 2015: Exhibition at Museum of American Illustration / 128 E 63rd St. NYC

Congratulations again to Ben for his inspired work in his ART412 Illustration Topics class last spring with Professor Brinley.

Susana Cortez

PERFORMENANDO, February 21,2015, Queens Museum, opening 3:00-6:00pm

PERFORMEANDO (SpanGlish word, coined by NYC artist Hector Canonge in the context of Live Action Art and Corporal Expression) refers to the creation of an event, presentation, act, action, and/or intervention.) PERFORMEANDO is the first international program focusing on featuring works of performance artists who identify themselves as Latin, Latina/o or Hispanic living and working in the U.S. PERFORMEANDO was launched by Canonge in 2013 and serves as platform for dialogue and exchange, and to foster collaborations based on the premise of experimentation and exploration of Live Action Art in the context of the Hispano-American experience in the United States.

PERFORMEANDO’s first program for 2015 in New York City will take place at the Queens Museum. The program explores notions of "home" and pertain to questions such as: What is home? Where is home? Is home where the heart is or where the money is made? Is country analogue to the notion of home? How does one build notions of homeland?...

Under the curatorial direction of Canonge, twelve artists coming from nine countries were selected from a city-wide open call. Participating artists include:

  • Maria Builes (Peru)
  • Susana Cortez (Mexico)
  • Oscar Diaz (Salvador)
  • Raquel du Toit (Mexico)
  • Camilo Godoy (Colombia)
  • Ma. Fernanda Hubeaut (Argentina)
  • Geraldo Mercado (Puerto Rico)
  • Caryn Moriah (Puerto Rico)
  • Lisa Parra (United States)
  • Claribel J. Pichardo (Dominican Republic)
  • Bryan Rodriguez (Peru)
  • Collective Marea Granate (Spain)

Note: country in parenthesis denotes Hispanic heritage, and in many instances, not place of birth.

More information: http://performeandousa.blogspot.com Contact: performeando@gmail.com Join us in Facebook.

Directions: QUEENS MUSEUM www.queensmuseum.org

NYC Building Flushing Meadows Corona Park
#7 Train to Citifield Shea Stadium Stop
Walk 10 mins. in the direction of the park

Spring 2015 Visiting Artist

Our visiting artist lectures will be held at 5:00pm on Tuesday's in Smith Hall Room 130.

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