Following is a collection of various art exhibitions and other UC Davis faculty and alumni in the news, including a new honor for Professor of Art and Art History Annabeth Rosen, who also holds the Robert Arneson chair.
Rosen is being honored as a Fellow of the American Craft Council, a national nonprofit dedicated to advancing American craft. The ACC honors individuals and organizations for exceptional artistic, scholarly, and philanthropic contributions to the craft field. The ACC recognized Rosen’s work as one of the preeminent ceramic sculptors in the 21st century. She transforms the conventional material of ceramic into fired, broken-but-gathered, unconventional, visually striking, and mysterious works of art, the ACC said. Rosen said “my process of building, breaking, and putting back together becomes part of an interior process as well as a means of fabrication.”
Rosen's work is represented by PPOW Gallery in New York, the Anglim Gilbert Gallery in San Francisco, the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Oakland Museum, Denver Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and many public and private collections. Rosen has received multiple grants and awards including a Pew Fellowship, two NEA Fellowships, a UC Davis Chancellor's Fellowship, and a Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors grant. In 2016, she was named a United States Artists fellow. Most recently, Rosen has been granted the Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2018.
Awarded biennially since 1970, the ACC Awards include the College of Fellows, the Gold Medal for Consummate Craftsmanship, the Award of Distinction, and the Aileen Osborn Webb Award for Philanthropy. This year’s awards highlight seven artists, a museum, and an advocate in the craft field who are continuing to uplift traditions while advancing the boundaries and impact of contemporary craft.
More information from the ACC is here.
UC Davis alumna and grad student collaborate on opera
Two Aggies collaborated to create the 40-minute opera “Bones of Girls,” and its abbreviated 20-minute version “Moon, Bride, Dogs.” The opera was written by librettist Cristina Fríes, who earned her MA in Creative Writing from UC Davis. It was composed by Ryan Suleiman, a Provost Fellow and doctoral student in Composition/Theory at UC Davis. “Moon, Bride, Dogs” was performed recently as part of West Edge Opera’s annual Snapshot program. This performance was lauded by Joshua Kosman in his review in the SF Chronicle. Kosman described the work as “eerily beautiful,” and stated “There’s nothing in this 20-minute opus that doesn’t need to be there, but it covers plenty of ground in just a few deft strokes.” Fríes and Suleiman hope to shoot a film adaptation of the opera later this year.
Art faculty in continuing exhibitions
Robin Hill: there’s only one sky, artspace 1616, Sacramento, through Sunday, Feb. 29
- Robin Hill, UC Davis professor of art, will have a solo exhibition at artspace 1616 from through Feb. 29. In the exhibition, there’s only one sky, Hill transforms discarded objects by giving them new life; which allows the objects to comment on matter and time.
- Also with Hill: Critical Matters 2.0, JAYJAY Gallery, Sacramento, through Saturday, March 2
Here’s a Sacramento Bee story about it. More on Hill’s work and exhibitions here.
Deirdre White: Now That My Ladder’s Gone, ampersand international arts, San Francisco, through Friday, Feb. 28
- Art Studio Lecturer Deirdre White will have a solo exhibition at ampersand international arts through Feb. 28. Her oil paintings take as a subject “the mobile contraptions built by un-homed people” and reference the “folds of cloth and bindings found in artworks by the old masters.” More on White’s work here.