Visiting Artists

Kensuke Yamada

Monday, September 28
12:00 - 1:00 PM
Osher Hall

Kensuke Yamada draws on his Japanese heritage to explore identity, folklore, and the emotions found in moments in everyday life. He has participated in numerous artist residencies and visiting artist programs, including The Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana, and The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, and it is included in various museum and institutional collections. He is currently an assistant professor at California State University, Chico CA.

Funded by the generous support of the TD Charitable Foundation

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Eileen Isagon Skyers

Monday, October 5
12:00 - 1:00 PM
Osher Hall

Co-hosted by the Institute of Contemporary Art.

Funded by the generous support of the TD Charitable Foundation

Tony Matelli

Wednesday, October 7
5:30 - 7:00 PM
Osher Hall

Tony Matelli (b. Chicago, 1971) is an American artist working predominantly in the field of sculpture. The artist frequently focuses on themes of time, ambivalence, banality, and wonder. In Matelli’s work, the physical laws of objects are often reversed, upended or atomized, and with these deft manipulations of matter and gravity come profound reorientations in perspective and ultimately, states of being.

Matelli gained recognition for his meticulous craftsmanship and ability to create startlingly lifelike representations of ordinary objects and surreal scenarios that have meta-physical and philosophical implications. Matelli's work has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide including The Whitney Museum of American Art, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum in Denmark and The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia among many others. He lives and works in New York City.

Funded through a generous gift from Dr. Edward M. Friedman '08 and Carole J. Friedman, in honor of Sculpture Professor Emeritus Gary Ambrose.

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Raúl The Third

Monday, October 19
12:00 -1:00 PM
Osher Hall

Raúl The Third is a New York Times bestselling and three-time Pura Belpre award-winning illustrator, author, and artist living in Boston. Vamos! Let’s Cross the Bridge was awarded one of the year’s Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2021 from the New York Times and the New York Public Library. His work centers around the contemporary Mexican-American experience and his memories of growing up in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. ¡Vamos! Let’s Go to the Market! is Raúl’s first authorial project, which he wrote and illustrated, and was colored by Elaine Bay. It was awarded a Pura Belpré Honor by the American Library Association and Reforma. Vamos! Let’s Go Eat was awarded the Pura Belpré Award in Illustration by the American Library Association and Reforma.

Lowriders in Space was nominated for a Texas Bluebonnet award in 2016-2017, and Raúl was awarded the prestigious Pura Belpré Award for Illustration by the American Library Association for Lowriders to the Center of the Earth. Lowriders Blast from the Past and Lowriders to the Rescue are the third and fourth books in the series. He was also a contributor to the SpongeBob Comics series.

He is the co-creator of Strollercoaster with Matthew Ringler and Elaine Bay from Little Brown and Company. With award-winning author Jason Reynolds, Raúl the Third has illustrated the New York Times best-selling books Stuntboy in the Meantime and Stuntboy In-Between Time. Raúl the Third and Elaine Bay are currently working on their latest graphic novel series, The Snips, with Little Brown and Company.

Funded by the generous support of the TD Charitable Foundation

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Philip Brou

Monday, October 26
12:00 -1:00 PM
Osher Hall

Philip Brou is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in South Portland, Maine. Brou’s work focuses on questions of identity, selfhood and the human condition. His meticulously researched and executed projects form interconnected narratives with subjects ranging from his routine practice of jogging, to Mohamed Atta’s hotel stay on the night before he led the September 11th attacks, the role of Polyphemus in Homer’s Odyssey, the demolition of Steven Spielberg’s first childhood home, and Space Probe Voyager 1’s journey as the farthest human-made object from our planet.

Brou earned his MFA from The Ohio State University and his BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. He has been the recipient of awards including the Biennial Purchase Prize from the Portland Museum of Art, a Good Idea Grant from the Maine Arts Commission, Faculty Development Grants from Maine College of Art & Design, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and a Presidential Fellowship from The Ohio State University. He has been selected to attend residencies at the Ellis Beauregard Foundation, Monson Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center. His work has been exhibited at the Portland Museum of Art, Portland; The Fitchburg Museum of Art, Fitchburg; The Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland; The Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design, Portland; Ohio Urban Arts Space, Columbus; Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells; Able Bake Contemporary, Portland; 1708 Gallery, Richmond; Office Hours Gallery, Burlington; The University of New England Art Gallery, Portland; and Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York City. Reviews and acknowledgements in notable publications include Two Coats of Paint, Art New England, Maine Arts Journal, The Portland Press Herald, The Portland Phoenix and The Columbus Dispatch.

Philip Brou is a Professor of Painting, Foundation, and MFA, and Program Chair of Painting, at Maine College of Art & Design.

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Sondra Sherman

Monday, November 2
12:00 -1:00 PM
Osher Hall

“My work is inspired by the distinctive voice of jewelry as a cultural artifact understood in the psychological and social context of the body/wearer. To make the familiar visible as symbolic, I embrace jewelry signifiers—human scale, fine detail, gemstones, botanical and amuletic forms. I then unsettle that familiarity through material contradictions, obsessive construction, interaction with the body and contextual framing via presentation boxes / displays. Subject matter and curiosity drive my choice of materials and process. I conflate traditional jewelry materials and skilled handwork, with industrial metals, found objects and textiles additionally employing photography and digital processes. Over time, I have created diverse bodies of work while consistently returning to the same underlying question; how meaning takes shape through objects...and how that meaning is negotiated between individuals, bodies, and social situations. Whether engaging questions of gender / social identity, grief and commemoration, superstition and healing, or cultural displacement, I aim to create work that is approachable yet unresolved, inviting a broad audience to a conversation grounded in empathy.”

Funded by the generous support of the TD Charitable Foundation

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Taylor Baldwin

Monday, November 16
12:00 -1:00 PM
Osher Hall

Taylor Baldwin (b. Tucson, AZ) is an artist working primarily in sculpture, video, and installation. He received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2005 and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2007. He has been a resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Fine Arts Work Center, and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, among others.

Baldwin has exhibited at International Waters Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Wayfarers Gallery (Brooklyn, NY) Conner Contemporary Gallery (Washington D.C.), Land of Tomorrow Gallery (Louisville, KY), and Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA) as well as groups shows at the Queens Museum of Art (Queens, NY), Tucson Museum of Contemporary Art (Tucson, AZ), the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (Norfolk, VA), the Kentucky Museum of Arts and Craft (Louisville, KY), and P.P.O.W. Gallery (Manhattan, NY). He is currently based in Providence, RI.

As an artist, Baldwin works to contribute to our cultural vision of possible futures after capitalism. Specifically, he is dedicated to understanding the politics, poetics, and essential value of reuse. Nearly every component in his work is found, salvaged, reclaimed or otherwise acquired from outside of the global consumer market. His work seeks to give voice to the stories and histories contained within peripheral, alternative economies through the materials they create.

Funded through a generous gift from Dr. Edward M. Friedman '08 and Carole J. Friedman, in honor of Sculpture Professor Emeritus Gary Ambrose.

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