| School of Art and Art History Newsletter | The students, faculty, and alumni of the School of Art and Art History at the University of Iowa create extraordinary art and scholarship. Our monthly newsletter will keep you up to date.
Please submit your news and images for consideration for the SAAH newsletter. We'd love to share your accomplishments! | | | | The School of Art and Art History is excited to welcome Thalassa Raasch, newly appointed Assistant Professor of Photography and Experimental Media. A French-American artist, educator, and beekeeper, Raasch joins us from the salty coast of Maine where they taught photography and interdisciplinary foundations at Colby College, the Rhode Island School of Design, and Maine College of Art.
Learn more about Raasch and their work on their website. | | | Painting and Drawing professor T.J. Dedeaux-Norris's work “Ted’s Place” (2014) is in the exhibition The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts through September 6. This exhibition investigates the aesthetic impulses of early 20th-century Black culture that have proved ubiquitous to the southern region of the United States.
View more of Dedeaux-Norris's work and practice on their website. | | | | The Grant Wood Art Colony presents Dispossessed by Elena Smyrniotis, Printmaking Fellow, June 3 through August 29 at C-Space, CSPS Hall, 1103 Third Street SE, Cedar Rapids.
For hundreds of thousands of years, ice has remained a permanent feature of our planet, until now. Irresistible and pristine bodies of ice are disappearing around the world due to rising temperatures.
Dispossessed represents a surreal seascape of icebergs floating in the middle of a dark ocean. The icebergs are formed from layers, embodying sheets of compressed snow that fell thousands of years ago. Each layer holds the mystery that vanishes along with melting ice. The Dispossessed creates an atmosphere of nostalgia, longing, and melancholia for the disappearance of this primeval ice. The installation achieves this experience by merging myriad fields of practice; it unifies sculpture, architecture, light, and sound. | | | Andrew Casto, Ceramics Program Head, is in the group exhibition Order and Chaos: Audrey Stone, Iván Carmona, Andrew Casto, Chris Trueman, and Michael Schultheis at Winston Wächter Gallery in Seattle through August 28.
Casto writes: “My work involves an investigation into extant negative forces in our lives, and to what degree the phenomenological ramifications of stress shape us physically, mentally, and emotionally. The formal language present in this analysis is based on a material study of geologic processes translated into ceramic and mixed media objects, often referencing historical vessel form. I seek a purposeful link between macrocosmic environmental change, and interruptions in our otherwise routine existence.
The foundation of this exploration is a desire to uncover the sublime in these moments of incongruity; the rush of presence into experience that might otherwise remain banal and ordinary, brought on by perceived inconvenience. My work asserts that it is possible for our daily vexations to illuminate the power of the present moment – something we all too often fail to notice.” | | | | Talita G. Long (MFA 1978, MA 1976 in Printmaking and Painting) was the first African American woman to be awarded the opportunity to earn a full scholarship to study printmaking with Professor Mauricio Lasansky.
She was also awarded a work-study with Professor Ben Moss in the Painting and Drawing department. She taught art in Los Angeles for 25 years and self-published her book on her art and music, Talita Long: Works from 1970-2018, in 2020.
Learn more about Long and her art on her website. | | | Recent graduate Jake Jones (MFA Intermedia 2021) is the new—and first ever—PS1 Media Arts Co-op Program Coordinator. PS1 Media Arts Co-op is a community resource for video, audio, and new media arts in Iowa City and a program of Public Space One. Jones works in a variety of time-based practices and is a long-time musician and arts organizer committed to access, experimentation, and community. Follow them on Instagram. | | | | Kevin D. Scott (MA Painting and Drawing 1982), AIA, is a mixed media artist and Principal architect at Davis Partnership Architects in Denver, Colorado. Pictured is his 12' wide drawing Movement #1 (Graphite and Prismacolor on paper, 135” x 51”), currently on view at the offices of Davis Partnership Architects. This drawing is the largest of a series of abstract drawings that are very process oriented with a spontaneous (automatism) approach to composition and balance in regard to line, color, and a juxtaposition of design elements or in the perceived arrangement of objects. | | | Andrew Mullally (Printmaking MFA 2018, MA 2017) has accepted a position at PrattMWP College of Art and Design in Utica, NY. He will be an Assistant Professor of Printmaking and Drawing starting this Fall.
Follow his work on Instagram. | | | | Adam Leech (BFA with Honors and Distinction 1996) has a solo exhibition at S.M.A.K., the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent, Belgium, where he was the 2020-2021 Artist in Residence.
‘De Gids’ (The Guide) comprises a series of paintings and a video work. It is an exhibition that evokes astonishment with regard to human physiology, the psyche and perception. It seeks to stimulate self-scrutiny and actively ‘guides’ the viewer through an awareness of his or her condition.
Leech lives and works in Brussels. View more of his work on his website. | | | Shelley Haven (Printmaking MFA 1978, MA 1976) is included in a host of public and private collections. Her work has been presented in the U.S. as well as in India, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, England and France. She taught at Cooper Union and Marymount Manhattan College, and currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
This year she was invited to participate in the international YouTube collaboration Grass under her Feet by composer Hendrik van Oordt. Her recent exhibitions include the group exhibition Colors of Spring at Blue Door Art Center in Yonkers and Sticks and Stones, a group exhibition in the Berkshires, July 23-August 15.
A native New Yorker, Haven lives in the Bronx and works in her Yonkers studio. View more on her website and Instagram. | | | |
