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2014-2015 Visiting Artist Lecture Series

Featuring the Canary Project, Joe Galbreath, Dennis Ichiyama, Jeff Rich: The Watershed Project, Tugboat Press, How and Nosm representing the Deem Distinguished Lecture Adelaide Paul, and Roger Crum for the J. Bernard Schultz Endowed Lecture in Art History.

The Canary Project

Renowned as innovators in the field of interdisciplinary and activist art, The Canary Project produces visual media and artworks about the single issue of climate change. This exhibit brought together works by the principal members of the Canary Project, Edward Morris and Susannah Sayler, and more than a dozen Canary Project artists. Collectively these works explore ways in which the prospect of catastrophic climate change challenges the limits of human comprehension and agency. The exhibition proposed that these challenges can be a source of inspiration, melancholic beauty, engagement or defeat.


Dennis Ichiyama

Sept. 4, 2014 | Exhibition in the Laura Mesaros Gallery, Sept. 4 - Oct. 2, 2014
Ichiyama's current research focuses on historic wooden type in America and Italy. His typographic prints and designs have received national awards from the Type Directors Club (New York), and The Mohawk Show. He is currently professor in the Visual Communications Design Program in the School of Visual and Performing Arts at Purdue University, West Lafayette campus.

Joe Galbreath

Oct. 2, 2014 | Exhibition in the Paul Mesaros Gallery Sept. 4 - Oct 2, 2014
Galbreath’s interests in graphic design include exploring and documenting vernacular design traditions, manual design making processes and independent publishing. His interest in letterpress technology and new ways of using old things also play an important role in his current research and form making. His work has been featured in Print magazine’s Regional Annual, Indie Publishing, and Fingerprint No. 2: The Evolution of Handmade Elements in Graphic Design.

Jeff Rich: The Watershed Project

Oct. 15, 2014 | Exhibition in the Laura Mesaros Gallery, Oct. 16 - Dec. 9, 2014
Rich’s work focuses on water issues, ranging from recreation and sustainability to exploitation and abuse. He explores these subjects by using long-term photographic documentations of very specific regions of the United States. Rich received his Master of Fine Arts degree in photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia.

Tugboat Press

Oct. 23, 2014 | Exhibition in the Paul Mesaros Gallery, Oct. 16 - Dec. 9, 2014
Artists Paul Roden and Valerie Lueth of the Pittsburgh-based Tugboat Press create intricate woodcuts that celebrate the natural world and mankind’s relationship to it. Lueth and Roden build idealistic, meticulously patterned worlds with extreme focus on craft and detail. Rich color is layered in multiple impressions from hand-drawn, hand-carved and individually printed woodblocks.

How and Nosm

Jan. 22, 2015 | Deem Distinguished Lecture | Exhibition in the Paul Mesaros Gallery, Jan 22 - Feb. 26, 2015
How and Nosm are identical twin brothers whose graffiti-inspired art has gained international influence. They produce prints and paintings on canvas, though aerosol can is dominant in all their works. The pair uses a signature palette of reds, whites and blacks in complex, detailed designs with geometric patterns and stylized characters engaged in admittedly dubious activities. The brothers have become known across the world for redefining what constitutes graffiti and public art.

Adelaide Paul

Feb. 26, 2015 | Exhibition in the Laura Mesaros Gallery , Jan 22 - Feb. 26, 2015
The main inspiration for her work is animals due to her strong relationship with and love for them. Paul's sculptures explore what she has referred to as “the alternately cloying sentimental and brutally callous relationship between humans and animals, both domesticated and wild.” Paul was the recipient of a PEW Fellowship in the Arts in 2007.

Roger Crum

August 26, 2015 | J. Bernard Schultz Endowed Lecture in Art History
Crum specializes in Renaissance Florence and modern Italy, but has published as well on the sculpture of Edgar Degas, the religious imagery of Barnett Newman, the photography of the Wright brothers, and the future of the book. He received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art history from the University of Michigan and his doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh.