Alumni

Art & Design Studio Art Faculty Kira Dominguez Hultgren (Crafts), Ben Grosser (Digital Arts), Patrick Hammie (Visual Arts), and Laurie Hogin (Visual Arts) recently received an Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship Award. BFA 2016 in Studio Art: Sculpture Alumna Jade Williams (New Art Forms) is also a recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship. Congratulations to all!

Art and Design alumnus, George W. Lundeen (MFA '73) has been selected as one of the 2024 Alumni Award recipients through the Illinois Alumni Association.

Eric Benson with alumni Veronica Pham and E. Ainsley have article published in Advanced Materials Technologies. Silvestre, Sara L., Morais, Maria, Soares, Raquel R. A., Johnson, Zachary T., Benson, Eric, Ainsley, E., Pham, Veronica, Claussen, Jonathan C., Gomes, Carmen L., Martins, Rodrigo, Fortunato, Elvira, Pereira, Luis, Coelho, João, “Green fabrication of stackable laser-induced graphene micro-supercapacitors under ambient conditions: Towards the design of truly sustainable technological platforms,” Journal of Advanced Materials Technologies (2024).

Preetika Rajgariah (MFA 2018) was featured this April in Expo Chicago's 'Exposure' section, with a solo show at Bill Arning Exhibitions, Houston.

Alumnus, Nick Hand was recently cited in Forbes Magazine, "The Bicycle Day Dream Bike: A Carbon Fiber Hommage to Albert Hofmann" by Rob Reed. This bike was an homage to the discovery of LSD and Bicycle Day (April 19th 1943). Nick Hand, who received his BFA in Painting in 2005, owns TW Carbon in Kirkwood, MO. TW Carbon repairs damaged carbon fiber bicycles and custom paint on high end bicycles of all kinds. His shop works with non art based endeavors and all of his employees are classically trained artists with degrees from four years universities.  There is a metals and jewelry maker, a lithograph artist, a photographer, and Hand, an oil painter. IG: www.instagram.com/twcarbon FB: www.facebook.com/twcarbon

Brittany Bindrim (Graphic Design 2007 BFA) just dropped her debut album "Velella Velella." The album may be purchased here.

Gerry Hayes, MFA 1966 Painting will have an exhibition, "Art Reclaimed" at Curry College on January 22-February 26, 2024 Reception: Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. Curry College, Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery, Curry College, Student Center, 1071 Blue Hill Avenue, Milton, MA 02186   Hayes' painting medium currently, and for the past several years has been in the area of 'painted reliefs'. He comments: "In recent artwork, I have added molded fiber relief forms - that are found in packaging, - to the surface of my paintings. 'Molded fiber', one of the most environmentally friendly and sustainable packaging forms that is made from recycled paper and water. The pressed paper forms are most often thrown away or recycled with the boxes that they came in. By adding them to my art works, I take them from disposable to desirable. Found objects, yes, but I don't use them as they come. I cut, glue, combine and transform elements that fit the ideas for each painting. The painting of shapes with colors, completes the completed look of each work.  In addition, relief paintings are unique and set themselves apart from traditional, flat 2-dimensional painting. This hybrid of painting can be viewed as extending the tradition of Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades in Dada, to the ‘combines’ of American Pop artists of Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and others." Gerry Hayes' career as been as an educator and a painter, installation sculptor and conceptual artist. Hayes' academic career has been at Pratt Institute where he served as graduate faculty, teaching seminars in painting, drawing, and printmaking. In addition, Gerry served as an administrator in the Undergraduate Painting and Drawing Department and later as Assistant Chair of the Fine Arts Department. In 2006, Professor Hayes resigned from Pratt and moved with his family, from New York City to Marblehead, Massachusetts where he currently lives and maintains a studio. Gerry’s work has been the subject of numerous group and one-person exhibitions at several national galleries and museums including the Denise Bibro's Platform Gallery, the Mitchell Algus Gallery, the Reese Palley Gallery, David Hall Fine Arts in Wellesley, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the Krannert Art Museum. Hayes' work is also included in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Hayes has been working with packaging materials in his paintings since 2017, and recently, REPURPOSED, a series of paintings presented on packaging materials was the subject of a one-person exhibition at the John Molloy Gallery in New York City. Art Reclaimed is Co-Curated by: Alison Poor-Donahue, MFA Professor and Chair, Visual and Performing Arts Department Jim Fitts, Professor, Graphic Design

Alumna Tammie Rubin (BFA 1999 History of Art and Crafts) received a Berresford Prize from United States Artists. Please visit here. The Berresford Prize is an unrestricted $50,000 award given annually to a cultural practitioner who has contributed significantly to the advancement, well-being, and care of artists in society. Introduced in 2019, the award was conceived of by several USA Fellows in response to the lack of acknowledgment for those who have dedicated their careers to the betterment of artists. Named for our co-founder Susan V. Berresford, this prize reinforces our commitment to artists by acknowledging the remarkable administrators, curators, scholars, and producers who are building platforms and creating conditions for artists to thrive. Each year’s recipient is selected by an internal nomination and review process.

BFA 2012 alumna, Leah Guadagnoli, was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal, with Mollie Katzen, author of the “Moosewood Cookbook.” Read article here.

The New York Times featured Art and Design alum, John Miller (MFA '98, Sculpture), in a recent article promoting his exhibit at the Lowe Art Museum in Miami, Florida. The article explores Miller's 'playful' work with glass, his journey through art - including his time at the School of Art & Design - and his inspirations. Read more in A South Florida Museum Showcases Burgers, Fries and Beers, Made of Glass.

Bea Nettles will be inducted at the 2023 Hall of Fame Induction & Awards ceremony on November 3, 2023. The IPHF annually awards and inducts notable photographers or photography industry visionaries for their artistry, innovation, and significant contributions to the art and science of photography. Visit the site here.

Liza Sylvestre, alumna of the School of Art & Design, and currently a multimedia artist and research assistant professor within the College of Fine and Applied Arts, has a new exhibit in the Collective gallery in Scotland. Sylvestre's exhibition, asweetsea "explores what it means to communicate. As an artist who is deaf, and whose child and partner are both hearing, Liza Sylvestre seeks to locate where her disability lives within their family structure," according to the gallery page. Read more in the Collective's Autumn Exhibitions announcement.

Patrick Earl Hammie, Contributor, “The Lunar Codex,” Earth’s Moon, Sol System, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy, July, 2023. Curator: Samuel Peralta, physicist, author, composer, film producer. The Lunar Codex is four time capsules holding digital archives that feature 30,000 artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers from 157 countries. It will travel to the moon between 2023 and 2026 as part of The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program where it will permanently reside. Reproductions of my artwork with interviews and reviews that were originally published in PoetsArtists Magazine are included. Dr. Peralta said, "Our hope is that future travelers who find these time capsules will discover some of the richness of our world today... It speaks to the idea that, despite wars and pandemics and climate upheaval, humankind found time to dream, time to create art.” https://www.lunarcodex.com New York Times ARTnews  

1995 BFA in Painting alumna, Mary Anna Pomonis, was recently featured in Art & Cake.

1958 MFA alumna, Ruth A. Migdal was recently featured in the Chicago Sun Times and Chicago Tribune.  

Alumnus Tom Goldenberg, BFA 1970 Sculpture will be in a group show "Material Sustenance & Family Snapshots" at the Re Institute. The Re Institute 1395 Corners Road Boston Corners, New York May 27th to July 15th. Opening is May 27th from 4 to 6

Studio Art: New Media Associate Professor, Ben Grosser, was featured on April 19, 2023 of the New York Times. "The Future of Social Media Is a Lot Less Social" by Brian X. Chen.  

My Electric Genealogy. A performance by Sarah Kanouse, Professor at Northeastern University and A&D MFA alum (2004) When: Tuesday February 14, 5:30pm - 7pm Where: Art & Design Building, room 331 What: Part storytelling, part lecture, and part live documentary film, Sarah Kanouse’s solo performance “My Electric Genealogy” explores the shifting cultures and politics of energy in Los Angeles through the lens of her own family. For nearly forty years, her grandfather designed, planned, and supervised the spider-vein network of lines connecting the city to its distant sources of power: rivers that are now drying up and power plants that are finally coming down. This physical infrastructure subtended diffuse “infrastructures of feeling” that included assumptions of perpetual growth and closely held beliefs about nature, gender, race, and progress. The performance weaves together signal moments in the city’s history, episodes of her grandfather’s life, anxious fantasies about a climate-challenged future, and stories of resistance and reinvention in the face of extraction. “My Electric Genealogy” is an essayistic working-through of energy as a personal and collective inheritance at a moment of eco-political reckoning. Written, produced and performed by Sarah Kanouse Sound design by Jacob Ross LA-based musician and sonic artist Jacob Ross contributed original music and sound design for “My Electric Genealogy.” Ross has worked with wide variety of filmmakers and performers including Lucky Pierre, Terri Kapsalis, Deke Weaver, Deborah Stratman, and Califone. Sarah Kanouse is a Boston-based interdisciplinary artist, writer, and filmmaker whose solo and collaborative work has been presented at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Documenta 13, the Museum of Contemporary Art-Chicago, The Cooper Union, The Smart Museum, and numerous film festivals, academic institutions and artist-run spaces nationwide.

Art History alumna María del Mar González-González was recently featured in an article at Southwest Contemporary. Read the article here.

John Avila's firm recently joined The Change Agencies. Avila graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in graphic design in 1984. He has been professionally affiliated with the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and STA (Society of Typographic Arts) in the past and often juries the International ARC Awards in New York. With a passion for typography, John also designs and prints artwork on letterpress with antique wood fonts. He is an avid runner and is on the Board of Directors for Proud to Run and Frontrunners Chicago. The Change Agencies are the first and only national network of independently-owned public relations firms focused on inclusive and authentic communications to multicultural and LGBTQ communities. They help businesses and organizations identify, assess and address DEI communications challenges and opportunities. Read the article here.