Arts & Culture

UK SA/VS’ Spring 2024 Visiting Artist and Scholar Series to kick off Jan. 19

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NOTE: Alice Pixley Young's lecture has been rescheduled for noon Friday, Feb. 23, in the Bolivar Art Gallery.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 16, 2024) — The University of Kentucky School of Art and Visual Studies (SA/VS)s Spring 2024 Visiting Artist and Scholar Series kicks off at noon Friday, Jan. 19, with a lecture from Cincinnati-based multimedia installation artist, Alice Pixley Young in the Bolivar Art Gallery. The event will also showcase Young’s exhibition, Vernal Pool, on display through Feb. 26. Part of the Visiting Artist program, the school hosts a series of free, public talks with scholars and artists concerned with contemporary visual culture. 

 The Visiting Artist and Scholar Series features lectures, exhibitions and workshops in cooperation with the Art History and Visual Studies program. Find this semester's artists and presentations for the Visiting Artist and Scholar Series below: 

RESCHEDULED: Feb. 23, 2024 | noon-1 p.m. | Bolivar Art Gallery (Art and Visual Studies Building, 236 Bolivar St.)

Artist Statement: "In my multimedia installations, I use video and light projected through glass objects and kinetic sculptures to create immersive, moving shadow-drawings. The disruption of climate change, man-made disasters, and the evolution of technology on our (and as our) landscape has been the driving force of my creative research for several years. Citing art historical roots from the Hudson River School to Land Arts, I examine the interrelationship of landscape, environment, and technology. The 'shadow drawings' distort and amplify scale and space and distill a sense of the transient. These juxtapositions raise questions of history, labor and technology as well as the environment in which they exist."

April 4, 2024 | 1-2 p.m. | Bolivar Art Gallery (Art and Visual Studies Building, 236 Bolivar St.)

Quintín Rivera Toro was born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, in 1978. He holds a BFA in sculpture from Hunter College, New York – 2001; a B.A. in communications and film Studies from the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras – 2007; an MFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island – 2013; and a Ph.D. in  art production and investigation with the Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia in Spain – 2019. 

April 11, 2024 | 11:30-12:30 p.m. | Art and Visual Studies Building, Room 224 

Rebecca Drolen is an artist and educator working in Arkansas. Her photographs are concerned with how individuals visually assemble their identity and the constructed ideals placed on gendered bodily performance. Her work playfully explores the expansive nature of photography in contemporary art as it incorporates built spaces, assemblage and performance. 

As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.   

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