5:30 pm | Kathy Black | Playing All Over the Map | Clifford B. West Gallery and Rebecca Lawrence Gallery Entry
6:15 pm | Susan Calza | Our Hour | Elizabeth Rowland Mayor Gallery
Click here for exhibitions information
Kathy Black grew up in Chicago, Illinois; received a BA in English from the University of Illinois, Champaign; a BFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and an MFA in painting from Tyler School of Art, Temple University. She was awarded fellowships for the Oxbow residency, MI; La Napoule Symposium and Residency in France; and a Graduate Fellowship at Temple University. Recent exhibits include Expanding Universe, Collapsing Time, at the Vermont Studio Center, VT, February 2023, and Women and Girls, River Arts, Morrisville, VT, 2022. Others include Northern VT University, Rhode Island Community College, and Washington Art Center, CT. Group shows include Strange Paradise; Anna Marie Sculpture Center, MD; Arts Connect, Catamount Art Center, St. Johnsbury, VT; Witchy, Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT; and New England Collective X, Galatea Fine Art, Boston, MA. Kathy Black is the Program Director at the Vermont Studio Center, a residency for artists and writers in Johnson, VT. View her work on her website: www.kathyblackstudio.com.
Susan Calza is a conceptual artist and gallery founder/director living in Montpelier, VT. She served as a full-time Visual Arts faculty at Indiana University, Bloomington and was a tenured professor at Northern Vermont University, Johnson. Susan co-created and directed the Johnson State College/Vermont Studio Center MFA Program. Before retiring in 2014, she designed a million-dollar sculpture studio at NVU’s Johnson campus as well as The Black Box Gallery, which bears her name. Susan has received grants from the Illinois, Indiana, and Vermont Arts Council, as well as The University of Illinois, Indiana University and (NVU) Johnson State College. In 2022, the Montpelier Public Art Commission funded Calza to exhibit her Red Oculus interactive sculpture in downtown Montpelier as well as to curate a Video Salon screening the work of 11 artists from Vermont and beyond. An article by Erik Esckilsen about the Red Oculus Project appeared in the July 20, 2022, issue of Seven Days. She continues to exhibit nationally and internationally, and her work has been reviewed in the Hartford Current; the New York Times, The Chicago Sun Times, The Chicago Tribune, The New Art Examiner, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Christian Science Monitor, The Indianapolis Star, Arts Indiana, Dialogue Magazine, The Stowe Reporter, The Times Argus, and Seven Days. In recent years, she has been awarded three artist residencies at the Studios at MASS MoCA and one residency at Stwidio Maelor in Corris, Wales. She has been invited to return to Stwidio Maelor in 2024 for both a residency and one-person exhibition. Her approach to art making is conceptual and interdisciplinary, utilizing sculpture, video, 2D and performance. While methods and materials are interchangeable throughout, in recent years her work has become socially engaged and political, serving as a platform for cultural critique. The Susan Calza Gallery opened in 2019 as a venue through which art speaks truth to power. It has exhibited installations focusing on mass shootings, immigration, climate change, and race relations. Let’s Not Pretend is her 2015 documentary screened in nine countries on five continents. View her work on http://www.susancalza.com/
