The studio art program values exposing students to a wide range of outside voices in order to broaden students’ understandings of contemporary art and their personal, artistic practices. The department regularly organizes talks, critiques, and workshops with artists, curators and/or critics who bring a range of perspectives and expertise to the department.
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About
About Puget Sound
Founded in 1888, University of Puget Sound is an independent, residential, and predominantly undergraduate liberal arts college.
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Academics
SOMETHING YOU DO
Part of a Puget Sound education is the opportunity for a wide variety of experiential learning options, including internships, studying abroad, and more.
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Admission
OPENING DOORS
Create your own path and pursue a life of purpose and impact.
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Student Life
We look forward to seeing you!
Learn about our weeklong orientation program that immerses you in campus and the community while preparing you to tackle your academic studies.
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Alumni
Once a Logger...
Always a Logger! Just because you're not still living on campus and visiting the Cellar for pizza doesn't mean you have to be disconnected from what's happening on campus!
Visiting Artists
Previous Years
San Francisco-based artist, and Associate Professor of Art at San Francisco State University, Susan Bealu led a color etching workshop in Fall 2021, as part of the Processual Abstraction Portfolio Exhibition.
Tacoma artist and 2017-2019 Tacoma Poet Laureate, Kellie Richardson presented new mixed media work and graphic poetry in relation to her exhibition, titled, Realized, in Kittredge Gallery.
Sama Alshaibi, artist and Professor at the University of Arizona.
Curator and artist Asia Tail from SpaceWorks Tacoma visited Professor Linda Williams classes.
Liss LaFluer, Living Artist Residency.
Mary Farrell, Professor of Art at Gonzaga University visited the University of Puget Sound in September to 2018, where she lectured, worked with students and developed lithographs from September 10-14.
She also presented her work on SOIL MADE VISIBLE, a collaborative project undertaken with her sister Pat Farrell, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota, Duluth during the first Art+Sci Salon of the semester.
Seattle based artist and Painting Professor at Cornish College of Art Cable Griffith led a multi-staged workshop in ARTS 350/450 Intermediate/Advanced Painting on using digital tools in one’s painting practice.
Artist, Audrey Tulimiero Welch conducted a two-day painting workshop, Strategies of Process / Layering on September 19 and 21, 2018. The workshop explored a range of layering processes and methods of mark-making and was based on the notion that in painting, “content is intrinsically linked to process.”
Colorado-based painter, Eric Elliott, engaged in an ARTS 350: Intermediate Painting mid-term critique. He was one of over a dozen artists participating in the Inaugural NW5 Painting Colloquium, which was held on campus on November 3-4, 2017.
November 3-4, 2017 the Department of Art & Art History hosted the NW5C Painting Colloquium.
Berlin-based artist Isabella Gresser engaged in a week-long residency on campus and exhibition of films, prints, drawings, and poems in the Kittredge Gallery. Her multilayered videos and installations combine video, found-footage, drawings, and photographs with text passages from literature, philosophy or poetry. Her experimental work is characterized by an emphasis on research and critical theory and the linking of culture-theoretical and philosophical aspects of the West and the Far East. In recent years, she has been very much concerned with the phenomenon of fatigue in Europe and South Korea. Philosophical reflections touch on the issues of increasing digitization in neoliberal societies. Her visit was made possible by the Catharine Gould Chism Fund for the Humanities and the Arts, Art and Art History Department, Religious Studies, Philosophy Department, Politics and Government, English Department and Digital Humanities.
Salvadoran born, San Francisco-based artist Victor Cartagena engaged in a two-day residency on campus. He led art students in creating an installation, Broken Families, a commentary on the toll immigration can take on family members who are separated by somewhat impermeable national boundaries. Cartagena also presented a lecture on his work in the Kittredge Gallery, exploring “what it is to be human, where the personal journey intersects with political, global, and universal realities and beliefs." His residency was a collaborative effort amongst The Department of Art and Art History, Hispanic Studies, Latino/a Studies, The Center for Intercultural and Civic Engagement, The Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and Latin American Studies.
Printmaker, Installation Artist and Curator Allison Hyde critiqued the thesis work of studio seniors in the Kittredge Gallery in spring 2016.
Printmaker and Professor Emeritus of Portland State University, Rita Robillard exhibited and lectured in the Kittredge Gallery in Spring 2016. She also gave a screenprinting workshop for beginning printmaking students and critiqued the work of studio seniors.
Painter Deborah Kahn had an exhibit entitled ’Paintings’ in the Kittredge Gallery, held multiple critiques with students, and gave a public talk on her work in the gallery.
Multi-media, Los Angeles based artist Ana Fernandez critiqued 2016 senior art majors thesis projects (spring 2016).
In collaboration with the Collins library, printmaker and Whitworth professor Nicole Pietrantoni lectured and gave an etching workshop for intermediate printmaking students in Fall 2015.
Chief Curator of the Tacoma Art Museum Rock Hushka regularly engages in individual critiques of senior thesis projects with senior art majors.
Artist and Associate Professor of Painting, Cynthia Camlin led a group critique of Intermediate Painting students’ work and gave a public lecture on the evolution of her work in terms of its pertinence to the history of landscape painting and current environmental issues (fall 2014).
In conjunction with the University’s Art+Sci Salon, multi-media artist Timea Tihanyi conceived and installed a participatory exhibit Parlor Games: Parallax; worked with students; and was part of an interdisciplinary salon encompassing philosophy, neuroscience, mathematics, and art on perception.
Artist Margie Livingston hosted 2015 senior art majors in her studio (spring 2015). She showed as well as explained the development of her innovative processes. Margie subsequently came to campus and critiqued Intermediate and Advanced painting students’ work (fall 2015).
Artist Katy Stone and Artist/Curator Julia Freeman engaged in a collaborative group critique of thesis projects with 2015 senior art majors in the Kittredge Gallery (spring 2015).
Artists Jeanne van Heeswijk, Randy Bolton, Josephine Halvorson, and Sandow Birk visited campus. Living Art was a visiting artist series supported by the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Puget Sound and funded by a generous grant from an anonymous donor. Living Art provided our students, staff, faculty, and the Tacoma community with deep exposure to the art world today through opportunities to learn from and develop professional relationships with nationally and internationally renowned artists, art critics, and curators of modern and contemporary art. Artists who are invited to participate in the Living Art program visit Puget Sound for seven to ten days, interacting closely with our art majors in the classroom via lectures, demonstrations of technique, individual meetings with students, and constructive critiques of student artwork. Artists also interact with the community at large through public events including lectures, town hall-style meetings, and exhibitions of their work in the Kittredge Gallery at the University of Puget Sound.
Professor Xu Yongmin from the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts in Wuhan, China lectured on "Changing Art Education in China’s Art Academies," exhibited his artwork in the Kittredge Gallery, and gave calligraphy and painting demonstrations for students in Spring 2012.
Other visiting artists and curators to Puget Sound have included Mark Pascale, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago; Rachel Maxi, painter; Nikki McClure, papercut artist; Michael Darling, previous Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Seattle Art Museum; Drive By Press mobile printmaking studio; Jana Evans, ceramicist; and Mary Farrell, printmaker and professor at Gonzaga University.
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