Alumni News
Catching up with YINTING FAN
YINTING FAN (2019 BFA Graphic Design) was a student at TTU when she worked up some illustrations
for a book that Dr. John Beusterien, Professor of Spanish, was working on. In her
junior year at School of Art, Yinting had just been awarded the prestigious Real &
Muff Musgrave-Medici Circle Scholarship for her drawing talent. When Beusterien contacted
School of Art looking for someone to make illustrations for his book project, she
was recommended.
Beusterien provides some detail about the project. "Yinting created three images of Indian rhinos that we integrated with early modern maps and published. One shows a mother with her baby rhino in the wild in India. Archival information records that a mahout accompanied with and slept with a rhino sent from India to Spain in the sixteenth century. Yinting imagined and produced beautiful images of the two of them on a ship."
Yinting's work appeared in an early article by Beusterien, "Comedy and environmental cultural studies: an image of a Spanish rhinoceros and Sancho with his donkey" (Hispanic Issues Online 24, 2019). When Beusterien's book finally published this fall, Transoceanic Animals as Spectacle in Early Modern Spain (Amsterdam University Press, 2020), three of Yinting's illustrations were included in the publication.
Born in Chengdu, China, Yinting and her family immigrated to the USA around 2011 and settled in Dallas. She is currently completing an MFA in Visual Communication Design at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY (anticipated May 2021). Because her skills combine graphic design, motion graphic, 3D, and UI/UX, she says she will be seeking a position in visual design, motion graphic design, and digital design. Her current work can be viewed at https://eatingrice.design/.
PATRICK QUARM: First New York Solo Exhibition
PATRICK QUARM (2018 MFA Painting) has his first New York City solo exhibition at Albertz Benda, September 3rd through October 4th. Titled "Salvaged Imperial" the exhibition includes new works that range from intimate portraits to monumental tableaux that establish a new visual language for expressing hybrid identities. Quarm weaves and splices cultural signifiers from different eras and communities into multi-layered works that invite the viewer to explore them from different angles.
ArtNet News has posted a feature about Patrick's exhibition in which many of his new works can be viewed.
Earlier this year, Quarm was interviewed by Art of Choice about his art practice. The interview can be read at this website. Quarm lives in Ghana and spends part of his time in the USA.
ROBIN KANG Featured Artist During New York Textile Month
Although times are strange, for ROBIN KANG (2004 BFA Photography, MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago) fall art events are still happening...with restrictions of course.
This month Robin (who was known as Jennifer Buell while at Texas Tech) is honored to be part of New York Textile Month. NYTM will conduct a Zoom Studio Visit with Robin on September 17th from 6-7 PM (EDT). Robin will discuss her process and recent artworks while giving a virtual tour of her studio and Jacquard loom. Utilizing a TC-2 Digital Jacquard loom, a contemporary relative of the first binary operated machine and argued precursor to the invention of the computer, Kang hand weaves tapestries that combine mythic symbolism, computer related imagery, and digital mark making. The juxtaposition of textiles with electronics opens an interesting conversation of reconciling old traditions with new possibilities, as well as the relationship between textiles, symbols, language, and memory. Interested parties can register here to attend the zoom studio visit.
On Sunday, September 20th NYTM will host a Meet the Artist Picnic @ Motherboard Meditation. The actual picnic (with safe distancing) will take place at the TATA Innovation Center @ Cornell Tech Roosevelt Island. Motherboard Meditation, shown above, is a new work by Robin commissioned by Arts Brookfield for the TATA Innovation Center on Roosevelt Island, curated by Tom Kotik. The piece is inspired by the ways knowledge can be recorded in patterns, both in weaving itself and embedded in the ritual process of creating textiles. The work will be on display at the TATA Innovation Center through April 23, 2021.
Earlier this summer Robin was included in a group exhibition, Un Voyage Sans Voyage, at Mathilde Hatzenberger Gallery in Belgium.
DAWNA GILLESPIE to be featured by Texas Country Reporter
DAWNA GILLESPIE (2013 BFA Visual Studies with emphasis in Jewelry Design & Metalsmithing) will be featured on the upcoming 49th Season of the Texas Country Reporter. The segment including Dawna will air in Lubbock on Sunday, September 13th at 9 am on KCBD 11 (NBC).
On Friday, March 6th, Dawna had the honor of having Bob & Kelli Phillips with Texas Country Reporter on location filming her studio and herself for the upcoming fall season! Since 1972 Bob Phillips has traveled the backroads and told the stories of real Texans - ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
KELLY REYNA Teaching at Lubbock Christian University
This fall KELLY REYNA (2019 MFA Painting) joined the faculty of Lubbock Christian University. She is Adjunct Instructor for Drawing and Art & Children. She is also an adjunct instructor at Texas Tech School of Art this fall.
Reyna also had a solo exhibition at LCU August 20 - October 14 to introduce her to her students and colleagues.
ALEXIS McGRIGG Included in SAY IT LOUD
ALEXIS McGRIGG (2017 MFA Painting) was included in a group exhibition organized by Christie's of New York in August (ending August 21st). Entitled SAY IT LOUD (I'm Black and I'm Proud) this is Christie's first exhibition solely dedicated to the promotion and empowerment of Black art in partnership with acclaimed curator Destinee Ross-Sutton. McGrigg was selected as one of 22 international young, emerging and mid-career Black artists who explore the notion of self through different lenses.
A video of McGrigg's artwork process can be viewed at this link. The group exhibition can be viewed at this link.
In May the Mississippi Museum of Art introduced their newest Museum program, Makers in Their Spaces, by focusing on McGrigg as their first featured maker, and followed up with an Instagram Live conversation with McGrigg. View the conversation by clicking here. A follow-up video can be viewed by clicking here. Makers in Their Spaces is an online program of the Mississippi Museum of Art in which the Museum features a maker to learn more about their practice and how they are drawing inspiration from their space.
McGrigg currently serves as Manager of the Arts Center of Mississippi in Jackson.
JAMI WHITE Now Teaching at Lubbock Christian University
This fall JAMI WHITE (2020 MFA Ceramics) joined the faculty of Lubbock Christian University as an adjunct instructor. She is teaching 2D Design and Sculpture. Next semester she will be teaching 3D Design and the following fall Ceramics.
White also has a solo exhibition at LCU August 20 - October 14 to introduce her to her students and colleagues.
RO SHAW: New Visual Arts Chair at Temple College
ROLANDO (RO) SHAW (2008 MFA Ceramics) has recently been selected to serve as Chair of the Visual Arts Department of Temple College in Temple Texas. The Visual Arts Complex, whose operations Shaw will oversee, includes a 17,000 square-foot facility housing an art gallery, computer lab, photography lab, audio-visual lecture room, drawing-printmaking studio, ceramic-sculpture studio, painting studio, and outdoor kiln-foundry work area.
For several years Shaw has run the Ro Shaw Clay Studio in Salado, not far from Temple (about 17 miles). There he has taught classes on his own, especially classes in wheel throwing and hand building. He has also provided teacher development workshops for high school instructors, as well as in-service training and in-class demonstrations at local high schools and universities.
CAROLINA ALAMILLA to Teach at Washington & Jefferson College
CAROLINA ALAMILLA (2019 MFA in Ceramics) has recently relocated from her hometown of Miami, FL to Washington, PA where she will serve as Visiting Assistant Professor of Ceramics at Washington & Jefferson College starting August 24th. At this time the university is planning to present a hybrid (some virtual; some face-to-face) program in ceramics.
Alamilla recently had artwork included in The Clay Studio National 2020, presented at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, PA. Earlier in the year she served as juror of the Carnaval on the Mile presented in Miami, FL in early March.
ZACH NADER Featured in Solo Exhibition
ZACH NADER (2011 MFA, Photography, currently living in Brooklyn) has a solo online exhibition of new works at Microscope Gallery in Brooklyn through August 22nd. Titled "something familiar," the exhibition includes works in mixed-media, sculpture and video. According to Microscope, Nader's work is subtly subversive, creating new narratives and aesthetics from disposable imagery to draw attention to a world in which every surface is a potential site for pictures.
Nader's exhibition was featured on Armory Access' online platform: https://www.thearmoryshow.com/armory-access/microscope
Robin Germany Connects with Alumni at SPE
Robin Germany, Professor of Art, had an opportunity to meet-up with School of Art alumni in early March at the Society of Photographic Educations Conference in Houston, just before the COVID lockdown happened. "What a sweet group." commented Germany. "It was great to have a drink with all of them during our down time."
Zach Nader (2011 MFA Photography) is an artist and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. He is represented by Microscope Gallery in Brooklyn.
Lauren Lopez (2019 MFA Photography) is an artist living and working in Dallas, Texas.
Amy Kim (2019 MFA Photography) is Gallery Director of the Nancy Fyfe Cardozier Gallery and lecturer at the University of Texas Permian Basin in Odessa.
Kalee Appleton (2005 BFA Photography, with an MFA from Texas Women's University, Denton) is a photography-based artist and assistant professor of photography at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. She is represented by Erin Cluley Gallery in Dallas, TX
Mona Borzogi is currently a doctoral student in the Fine Arts PhD - Art program at School of Art.
Tom Turner (2013 MFA Photography) is an art teacher living in Eagle River, Alaska.
Carol Cunningham Turner (2014 MFA Painting) is an art teacher also living in Eagle River, Alaska.
Rebecca Hopp (2013 MFA Photography) lives in San Antonio with here husband and daughter.
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