University Gallery at UMASS Lowell

01/05/2024

Earth Oracles
Allison Maria Rodriguez

Curated by Associate Professor Yuko Oda and Gallery Director Deborah Santoro

The UMass Lowell Department of Art & Design is thrilled to present Earth Oracles, an immersive multimedia installation by Allison Maria Rodriguez. Earth Oracles will be on view from January 31 – March 22 in the University Gallery in Mahoney Hall, 870 Broadway Street, Lowell, MA. Allison Maria Rodriguez will present an artist talk and conversation with Q&A to the public on Thursday February 8 from 3:30-5:00 p.m. in the Smith Ballroom on the 2nd floor of Coburn Hall, followed by a reception in the University Gallery next door from 5:00-7:00 pm. There will also be a panel discussion with Allison Maria Rodriguez, Professor Kirsten Swenson (Art History), and guests on Thursday, March 21 from 3:30-5:00 pm in Coburn Hall (Smith ballroom, 2nd floor). These events are free, accessible, and open to the public.

Allison Maria Rodriguez’s video installations immerse the audience in experiential spaces that ask the viewer to consider alternative ways of relating to animals and the environment. While focusing on climate change and species extinction, Rodriguez's work transports visitors to a hallowed space inhabited by endangered animals, adorned with colorful, layered landscapes, existing gloriously in heightened and super saturated moving imagery. By transforming video monitors into stained glass windows and galleries into cathedral-like spaces, Rodriguez builds an alternative world where the animal kingdom is revered in all its beauty and mystery. In considering the possibilities for multi-species flourishing on Earth, Rodriguez reveals the wisdom that non-human species such as sharks, cougars, and dolphins offer to those who listen. In Earth Oracles, Rodriguez blends Indigenous perspectives with theory, technology, and compassion to create a moment that is simultaneously a celebration and a call to action.

06/23/2020

Adam Pendleton is an African American artist who works in images and in words, always with a conceptual framework, in a variety of media including silkscreen, installation, video, and performance. He has shown extensively and in major museums like the MoMA, the Whitney, and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. He is also the author/compiler of Black Dada: what can black dada do for me do for me black dada, a reader.” He gave the Tim Hamill lecture at BU in October of 2019 (a few of us UML and associated people carpooled to hear it) and currently has an exhibit at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, currently slated to close in September 2020 (dates and availability subject to change during the pandemic of course). He had a spectacular show at the Lever House in NYC in the summer of 2018 (see picture) and has an upcoming exhibit at MoMA, dates TBA. In an article for ArtNews, Pendleton wrote a moving letter about racism in America and this current moment: “I am not safe, and this country is not kind.” https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/adam-pendleton-protests-1202689725/

06/18/2020

Betye Saar, born in 1926, has a career spanning decades. This LA based artist started out going to school for design, then fell in love with printmaking and later collage, assemblage, and installation. With recent solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, this 93 year old artist (and mother of artists Alison and Lezley Saar) continues to make work that directly deals with national racism, spirituality, and global culture. Rather than a long bio, I offer you Saar’s poem:

My roots are tangled…
A blend of black, white and red,
I am labeled Creole, mulatto, mixed, colored in every sense.
Enslaved by the ‘one-drop rule’
But liberated by the truth
That all blood is red.

Betye Saar will have an exhibit called “Betye Saar: Call and Response” at the Morgan Library at NYC scheduled to open in September of 2020. Image: The Phrenologer’s Window, 1966, Betye Saar. Assemblage of two-panel wood frame with print and collage of 2 silhouetted heads facing away from each other. The image includes sun and moon symbols and eclectic imagery. The title alludes to the use of the debunked pseudo-science of phrenology to denigrate people of African descent.

06/18/2020

Chaz Maviyane-Davies has spent a lifetime designing powerful work to promote social change. We were fortunate to have him visit the University Gallery in the Spring of 2016 with a talk and exhibition - A World of Questions: Posters on the Human Condition. Born in Zimbabwe, Chaz is a Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts College of Art & Design. UK’s Design magazine called him out as the “guerilla of graphic design” and among his many honors and laureates, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from UML in 2009 and in 2018 he was recognized with an AIGA Boston Fellow Award.

06/11/2020

For the remainder of June, the University Gallery will post images from BIPOC artists past and present on a regular basis in honor of Black Lives Matter. To nominate an artist, please leave a message in the comments or IM.

Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) was an American and later a Mexican artist, the granddaughter of freed slaves, she earned an MFA degree from the University of Iowa, the first African American woman to do so. She was a painter, a printmaker, and a sculptor who travelled to Mexico on a fellowship in the 1940s, and later moved there after her activism during the McCarthy era made it difficult for her to remain in the U.S. According to Jim Haskins in the intro for “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” she was “tired of fighting racism at every turn, and she believed her art would find a wider audience (there).” She taught in Mexico City for 20 years and was successful, ultimately becoming the head of the sculpture department at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plàsticas (Wikipedia). Her linocut illustrations for “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson powerfully proclaim the injustice and the evils of slavery, racism, and discrimination with strong figures and bold lines, lines that were carved and inked with determination and a fierce intelligence. The original tagline for the illustration here was “I’m Phyllis Wheatley. I proved intellectual equality in the midst of slavery.” “shutdownacademia

06/01/2020

The Lowell Cultural Council has organized a webinar on inclusivity in the digital age- perfect for arts administrators and others in the cultural sector!

05/19/2020

Congratulations to our recent graduates!

Each semester, the UMass Lowell Department of Art and Design mounts an exhibition of works created by its current crop of BFA candidates. It’s a chance for them to share their talents and gather wi…

05/01/2020

Marcello Lewis is a designer / illustrator (UML 2020) who injects his design thinking and personal style through his work, while making sense of creation and what it means to be human. He draws inspiration from the culture surrounding music and fashion, as well as what's around him. His capstone, Ritual Experiment, explores the nature of OCD and paints a picture of what it may be like through the creation of organized information.

05/01/2020

Kimberly Cosgrove is an honors student and will soon be graduating with a BFA in Graphic Design. Her work consists of illustration and clean typography, but loves to experiment in many forms of design. Her capstone, Holly Hops Brewing, is a beer brand designed with women in mind. The beer industry has failed to effectively market to women and sales are suffering as a result. Based on extensive research, the brand aims to challenge the norm, uncover the forgotten role of women in beer, and empower.

03/31/2020

From the Fillmore to the Present: The Virtual Exhibit. John Pasche, Rolling Stones, 1972. John Pasche is a British designer who designed the Rolling Stones logo, apparently inspired by Mick Jagger’s own mouth and the Hindu goddess Kali. After receiving a BA from the Brighton College of Art and an M.A. from the Royal College of Art in London, he designed 4 tour posters for the Rolling Stones as well as for Paul McCartney, The Who, Jethro Tull, and others.

03/31/2020

The University Gallery is closed to visitors but the show still goes on! We will post one poster a day (Monday-Friday) between now and April 10th, possibly later. The excitement I’ve seen from the few students who saw the posters in situ has encouraged me to reschedule From the Fillmore to the Present next year. Stay tuned! Poster design by Lesa Tran, inspired by a Jimi Hendrix poster that you will see in a day or two.