Exhibitions Archive 2020 – Present

Arcadia Exhibitions is pleased to present “Jane Geayer: Selections from the Permanent Collection” in the Rosedale Gallery from June 16 – October 5, 2025. The works on display represent the artistic legacy of Jane Geayer (1935–2000), a 1956 graduate of Beaver College whose career as a studio artist, teacher, and designer spanned nearly four decades. 

These paintings were selected from the array of pieces provided to the University by Geayer’s estate after her passing. This collection, which includes examples of landscapes and abstract compositions, surveying Geayer’s entire career, reveals an artist of great intellectual dexterity, capacity, and curiosity.

Though widely recognized for his compelling commercial illustrations in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, ProPublica, and Wired, “No Particular Order” focuses on Shrestha’s personal creative output.

In Shrestha’s illustrations the viewer is confronted by volatile and divisive subjects, such as urban warfare, terrorism, displacement, racism, and xenophobia. Through his use of simple shapes, clean lines, a sparse, sometimes monochromatic palette, and subtle juxtapositions, Shrestha depicts these topics with a kind of subdued, almost mundane stillness. In this way he provides viewers with an opportunity to consider something dark and horrific in a manner that provides a psychological space for contemplation and dialogue.

Arcadia Exhibitions is pleased to present “Kris Graves: Privileged Mediocrity – Memorialization in America” from August 19, 2024 – May 25, 2025 in the Rosedale Gallery, University Commons.

Curated by Matthew Borgen with assistance from Willow Edmonds ’26, the exhibition features artworks from Graves’ recent project “Privileged Mediocrity,” which illustrate the impact of racism and power on the nation’s built environments.

LECTURE RECORDING

A BLEAK REALITY
“A Bleak Reality” is a series of eight photographs taken at the exact locations where unarmed Black men were killed by police officers. While each photo represents a single life and death, they collectively address the broader issues of institutionalized racism and violence against the Black community, especially Black men. These social divisions and the startling lack of empathy are exacerbated by perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Kris Graves traveled across the country to document the physical spaces where these lives ended, spaces that continue to be replaced by new tragedies. This reality is measured not only in numbers or statistics but in individual lives.

Kris Graves, J.E.B. Stuart Monument, Richmond, Virginia, 2010- 2022, Archival pigment print, 16″ x 20″

 Kris Graves, The Murder of Michael Brown, Ferguson, Missouri, 2010 – 2022, Archival pigment print, 16″ x 20″

 

 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Kris Graves (b. 1982 New York, NY) is an artist and publisher based in New York and California. Graves creates artwork that deals with societal problems and aims to use art as a means to inform people about cultural issues. Using a mix of conceptual and documentary practices, Graves photographs the subtleties of societal power and its impact on the built environment. He explores how capitalism and power have shaped countries– and how that can be seen and experienced in everyday life. Graves also works to elevate the representation of people of color in the fine art canon; and to create opportunities for conversation about race, representation, and urban life. He photographs to preserve memory.

Graves attended S.U.N.Y. Purchase College (BFA, Visual Arts) and has been published and exhibited globally, including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Getty Institute, Los Angeles; and National Portrait Gallery in London, England; among others. Permanent collections include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Getty Institute, Schomburg Center, Whitney Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Brooklyn Museum; and The Wedge Collection, Toronto; amongst others.

Arcadia University’s Department of Visual and Performing Arts, in conjunction with Arcadia Exhibitions, is pleased to present the Senior Thesis Exhibition from April 25 through May 11, 2025.

For this show the galleries, corridors, and studios of the Benton Spruance Art Center are transformed into a single expansive exhibition space. For the graduating seniors, the bodies of work on view, encompassing a full range of creative disciplines and approaches, represent the concluding research of their intensive, year-long capstone experience.

An end of year exhibition highlighting the work of Arcadia’s graduating art seniors is a tradition that dates back to the Department’s move to the Glenside campus from Jenkintown in 1935. Over time the opening of the exhibition has evolved into a celebration for the entire campus community, marking the end of Arcadia’s Thesis Week, which includes presentations and displays from every major.

Additionally, the first night of the exhibition is a moment when many alumni of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts choose to make their return to campus. They come to support friends, to converse with former mentors, or just to celebrate their connection to the larger community. 

The opening reception was held on April 25, 2025 beginning with a special sneak preview reception for alumni at 6:00 PM. The show opened to the Arcadia community and the general public at 7:00 PM with light refreshments provided.

Beginning in 2016, the alums attending the reception are given the opportunity to vote on their favorite individual thesis presentation. This year’s Alumni Prize was awarded to Ciara Cassisse, Professor Potter, and Veronica Snead.

The students included in this year’s exhibition include: Delaney Aikins, Lichen Balay, Ellie Breault, Miette Brennan, Jamees Phillip Calvello, Ciara Cassisse, “Creepie,” Sydney Connors, Alikah Cramer, Autym Dahlman, Connor Dennis, Ryan Erdman, Emily Feldman, Emily Fisher, Stevie Orion, Sophia Habarth, Frankie Herman, Jenna Hill, Sam Jacona, Reilly Marasco, Cody Gillick-Meeks, Alessandra Mitchell, Amelia Opshinsky, Kayla Pimpinella, Masai Pines-Elliott, Catherine Portelli, “Professor Potter,” Michael Rizzo, Raenya Rogers, Kaity Silvers, Alexa-Skye Simon, Julia Siragusa, Veronica Snead, Cat Sontag, Justin Steerman, and Helaina Toth.

This show represents a return to the format of a themed group exhibition, last undertaken in 2016 with “Revolutions of Making.” For this iteration, the participants were asked to present or create works that consider the term “Forward Progress,” a theme predominant within the rhetoric of the 2024 presidential election. Faculty and staff were given latitude to consider the theme either as it relates to their own creative practice or as a starting point to comment on the current social or political landscape.

According to Director Matthew Borgen, “The notion of asking the members of the Department of Art + Design to react to a single theme not only lends the show a degree of curatorial cohesion, but also offers our students an opportunity to see how the professionals they work with are addressing issues at the forefront of their own lives and research.”

This exhibition was curated and organized by Matthew Borgen in collaboration with a student committee which includes Willow Edmonds ’26, Molly Russom ’25, and Kelsie Winship ’26.

The artists represented in this exhibition include: Betsey Batchelor, Ash Garner “THECOLORG,” David Guinn, James Heimer, Arianna Kendra, June Lee, Carole Loeffler, Jennifer Manzella, Kyle Margiotta, Karen Misher, Christian “Patch” Patchell, Krista Profitt, Abbey Ryan, Abigail Synnestvedt, Idalia Vasquez-Achury, Julia Way, and Maryann Worrell.

The Arcadia University College of Arts and Sciences, in cooperation with University Advancement, is pleased to present “John Rhoden: An American Artist Around the World,” a lecture by Dr. Brittany Webb, on February 13, 2025 at 6:00 PM in the Beaver College Room, Landman Library.

Webb is the Evelyn and Will Kaplan Curator of 20th Century Art and the John Rhoden Collection at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA).  In this lecture, Webb will detail how John Rhoden’s ambition inspired him to pursue artistic training and mentorship in and beyond the American South, and how his global travels shaped the life he made and the artwork he produced abroad and at home.

John Rhoden, Untitled, n.d., bronze and glass or resin, 38 1/4 x 40 x 11 in. Gift from The John Walter Rhoden and Richanda Phillips Rhoden Collection at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. photo: Sahar Coston-Hardy

Kip’s practice has been informed by skills gained working as a cabinet maker, machinist, and clockmaker, including his 18 years as a restoration woodworker and technician for the five-story Wanamaker Grand Court Organ as well as his work maintaining the Philadelphia City Hall Tower clock. These vocations have given Kip intimate access to idiosyncratic, non-public spaces that have helped cultivate the tone and tenor of his work.

Construction on Kip’s project, which was conceived as both a residency and installation, began the first week of June and will proceed on site through the end of August.

The project is curated by Richard Torchia and supported by a grant from Edna W. Andrade Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation.

An end of year exhibition highlighting the work of Arcadia’s graduating art seniors is a tradition that dates back to the Department’s move to the Glenside campus from Jenkintown in 1935. Over time the opening of the exhibition has evolved into a celebration for the entire campus community, marking the end of Arcadia’s Thesis Week, which includes presentations and displays from every major..

Arcadia Exhibitions is pleased to present “Kitty Rauth: The Mirror Room,” from March 18 through October 11, 2024 in the Harrison Gallery, University Commons.

In their recent work, the Chicago-based artist uses cast sugar, often formed to replicate decorative glassware, as a poetic material to engage in conversations around classed systems of etiquette, racialized labor, and the body politics that surround the marketing and production of the product.

LECTURE RECORDING

Curated by Grace Harmer, “A Strong In-Your-Face Word” joins a host of exhibitions and events in Philadelphia organized to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1974 citywide exhibitions and programming entitled “FOCUS: Philadelphia Focuses on Women in the Visual Arts,” led then and now by Philadelphia artist Diane Burko and artist, curator, writer, and activist Judith K. Brodsky.

The title “A Strong In-Your-Face Word,” inspired by a 2008 essay by Martha Rampton, hints at the deeper sociopolitical and gender equity goals that the term feminism has come to represent in the second decade of the 21^st century. The artworks in this exhibition critically engage the nuances of second-wave feminism while concurrently exploring the ideological frameworks redefining the movement in the present. Recognizing the historical limitations of the term feminism in capturing diverse identities and experiences across gender, race, and cultural backgrounds, these works aim to broaden the scope of the movement embracing the need to redefine feminism since the original “FOCUS” exhibition.

Installation view, “A Strong In-Your-Face Word: Works from the Brodsky Center at PAFA”, Spruance Gallery, photo: Sam Fritch

Featured artists include Emma Amos, Eleanor Antin, Nancy Azara, Zoë Charlton, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Liz Collins, Betsy Damon, Mary Beth Edelson, Lauren Ewing, Chitra Ganesh, Sharon Hayes, Harmony Hammond, Joyce Kozloff, Yolanda López, Diane Neumaier, Farah Ossouli, Nell Painter, Faith Ringgold, Miriam Schapiro, Carolee Schneemann, Joan Semmel, Sylvia Sleigh, Joan Snyder, Nancy Spero, May Stevens, Athena Tacha, June Wayne, and Martha Wilson.

Chitra Ganesh (American, b. 1975), “Delicate Line (Corpse She Was Holding),” 2009–2010 (detail). Monotype with two-color silkscreen, two-color linoblock dusted with blue glitter, one-color linoblock dusted with gold glitter, and one-color glued plastic jewel on Arches 88 paper. 22 x 28 inches. Edition of 20. Published by the Brodsky Center at PAFA, Philadelphia. Copyright the artist and the Brodsky Center at PAFA, Philadelphia. Photography courtesy of the artist and the Brodsky Center at PAFA. Photo by Peter Jacob.

Judy Brodsky taught at Arcadia University from 1972 to 1978. On the occasion of “FOCUS,” Brodsky and the then Art Department Chair Jack Davis brought to Philadelphia the exhibition “Lee Krasner: Selections from 1946–1972,” and invited Krasner (1908–1984) to lecture on campus. In 1986, Brodsky became the founding director of the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper at Rutgers University, which was later renamed Brodsky Center in her honor. The Brodsky Center joined PAFA in 2018. Dedicated to printmaking and papermaking residencies for women and artists of color, it has pioneered institutional diversity, equity, and inclusion, and continues to foster innovative ideas and narratives.

Opening event for A strong in-your-face Word

Gallery Talk

Arcadia Exhibitions is pleased to present “Student Biennial 2024”, on display January 16 – February 18, 2024 in the Harrison Gallery. This exhibition is the tenth in a series at Arcadia featuring works by current students juried by an esteemed visiting arts professional. Any Arcadia student registered for classes during the Fall 2023 semester was eligible to submit up to three works for consideration.

This year’s juror is Samantha Mitchell, the lead curator/production manager at Center 4 Creative Works, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. In advance of the exhibition, Mitchell will be giving a lecture on her artistic practice in the Great Room, University Commons on November 6, 2023 at 4:30 PM, followed by a reception in the Harrison Gallery. Students interested in submitting works to the Biennial are urged to attend.

Mitchell selected 36 entries by 30 artists from a pool of 100 submissions by Arcadia first-years, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. The works selected include digital and film photographs, paintings, prints undertaken in a variety of techniques, several examples of functional ceramics, poster designs, collage, an artist book, as well as drawings completed in graphite, and colored pencil.

About the Juror

Samantha Mitchell is an artist, writer, and arts educator based in Philadelphia. She was born in New York City and graduated from Oberlin College in 2008. She lived and worked in Illinois, Utah, California, and Oregon before enrolling in the MFA program of Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, graduating in 2012.

Aside from her work in the studio, Mitchell is co-founder and director of THIS MUST BE THE PLACE, a publishing and curatorial project that foregrounds work by neurodivergent artists. She is the Lead Curator/Production Manager at the Center for Creative Works, a studio for adults with developmental disabilities. She worked as a managing editor for Title Magazine, a publication devoted to writing on the arts in Philadelphia, for five years, and contributes writings to Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, Sculpture Magazine, and Brut Force. Mitchell is a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia, a national collective of artist-run galleries.

Her work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Gross McCleaf Gallery, Snyderman-Works, Avery Gallery, AUTOMAT, Grizzly Grizzly, Schau Fenster (Berlin) and the International Print Center (NYC), and is part of the permanent collection at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Woodmere Museum, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 

Arcadia Exhibitions is pleased to announce the exhibition “Arcadia Collects: Art, Objects + Ephemera from the University Archives” on display in the Rosedale Gallery from July 5, 2023 – October 6, 2024.

Produced by Arcadia Exhibitions in collaboration with Anastasia Rousseau, project archivist, “Arcadia Collects” highlights important moments in the cultural history of Beaver College / Arcadia University through photographs, artifacts, and video while also offering a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of an active, living archive.

Included are audio recordings from Song Contest, the most popular social event at Beaver in the mid-20th century, photographs of the first European Field Trip in 1948, and rare color footage of the 1948 May Day celebration, digitized for this exhibition. Many of the displays are supplemented with QR codes where viewers can view additional images and more in-depth information. 

Items from the Pati Hill Collection are also on display in the exhibition. Rousseau has selected a number of xerographs found through the process of cataloging the collection – some being shown publicly for the first time – that reveal a variety of Hill’s visual experimentations centered around the photocopier.

Student Government Association President Merle Arbogast capping a freshman in the Rose Room, Grey Towers Castle, 1961.  Photo courtesy University Archives.

Frame from 16mm footage of the 1948 May Day Celebration. Courtesy University Archives.

Read the text by Gerard Brown published in conjunction with Quentin Morris’s 2004 solo exhibition curated by Alex Baker and presented by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Archives, Philadelphia.

Arcadia Exhibitions is pleased to present “Quentin Morris: Works on Paper.” The exhibition will be on view in Spruance Gallery from June 13 through September 17, 2023. 

This exhibition of drawings and paintings on paper by Philadelphia-based artist Quentin Morris (b. 1945) features 37 examples from a five-decade practice dedicated to the production of monochromatic works. Executed in a range of black mediums on a variety paper of supports, these previously unexhibited drawings and paintings were selected from the artist’s studio and date from 1977 to 2013.

Morris began his exploration of the color black while he was a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the early 1960s during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. His intention, as articulated in a written statement to which he has remained committed since that time, is “to present black’s intrinsically enigmatic beauty and infinite depth; to relentlessly refute all negative cultural mythologies about the color, and ultimately to create work that innately expresses the all-encompassing spirituality of life.”

Quentin Morris is represented by Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia and Blum & Poe, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and New York.

The scale of these paintings and drawings ranges from letter-size sheets to the nearly 14-feet horizontal, scroll-like work from 1977, one of the earliest works in the exhibition. This painting, along with several other examples on brown wrapping paper, demonstrate a capacity for boldness while also speaking to the fragility of their paper supports, the rough edges of which are rendered even more vulnerable by their presentation. Morris’s preference for hinging these works to the wall without frames ensures that viewers have direct access to their surfaces while making the works extremely reactive to the site of their display. Their textures absorb and reflect light in volatile ways. Surfaces that appear glossy from one angle can read as matte from another.

All of the drawings in the exhibition are presented in two vitrines, some of which were executed on printed flyers and newsletters mailed to Morris’s home. (Close inspection will reveal the presence of a mailing label adhered to a 15″ x 21″ graphite work from 1987.) The machine-cut edges of these sheets are in sharp contrast with the torn contours of the larger paintings on brown paper, which, in some instances, evoke fragments and artifacts.

Morris’s canvases have generally been executed using a mixture of silkscreen ink and polymer acrylic, whereas the mediums he applies to paper are much more diverse. These can include graphite, charcoal, crayon, marker, printing inks, and spray paint. These materials can be absorbed so densely into the paper that the results offer striking forms of material metamorphosis. A trio of works from 2001 on gray Fabriano paper—gifted to him, like much of the paper he uses—are distinguished by skein-like fluctuations in tone as well as networks of creases that result from the paper’s response to wet materials, including water itself.  In the case of dry media, layers of graphite can transform the given paper into an object resembling a sheet of metal.

The exhibition includes a grouping of thirteen circular works, a format he introduced to his canvases in the early 1980s and initiated on paper in the late 2000s. Morris trims these circles (each approximately 26 inches in diameter) by hand, a process that starts by folding the sheet of paper in half and inscribing a semicircle on the folded paper with a pencil attached to a string. While the sheet is still folded, Morris cuts along the drawn line. The resulting circles are somewhat irregular but consistently modular enough to encourage the viewer to savor their spectrum of differences. These range from mottled, organic textures to evidence of Morris’s direct gestural manipulation of silkscreen ink and polymer acrylic.

Each circle is bisected by visible folds, and in one instance, sliced into two equal parts. The different angles of these folds readily suggest the axes or equators of celestial objects. Although Morris may register such pictorial readings, he refutes any intention to portray or represent in the same way that he denies any value to the printed content of the found papers he uses. This posture is likewise supported by his refusal to title any of his works, which he labels only by the year and month of their production. The severity of Morris’s approach, however, is consistently tempered by forms of discovery, acceptance, and a practical, no-nonsense attitude that has resulted in an uncanny and monolithic practice that is continually culminating while simultaneously renewing itself.

 

Quentin Morris has exhibited in museums and galleries nationally and regionally, including, most recently, in a career retrospective at Blum & Poe, New York City (2017) and in the group exhibition “20/20: The Studio Museum in Harlem and Carnegie Museum of Art” (2017). His work is included in the permanent collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

“Quentin Morris: Works on Paper” marks the eighth time that Morris will be presenting his work at Arcadia.  He was a popular veteran of the gallery’s series of “Works on Paper” juried exhibitions, which originated in the 1970s as an annual drawing competition for regional artists and continued until 2009 as a biennial. His work was juried into six shows between 1991 and 2009 by Robert Storr, Thelma Golden, Laura Trippi, Mark Rosenthal, Bill Arning, and Connie Butler.  The Philadelphia Museum of Art acquired its only example of Morris’s work for its permanent collection as a purchase prize (selected by director Anne d’Harnoncourt) from the 1991 iteration of the exhibition.  One of his 10-foot diameter paintings was curated by then gallery director Paula Marincola into the first iteration of “A Closer Look,” a group exhibition with Carolyn Healy, Michael MacFeat, and Anne Seidman, each of whom, like Morris, had been previously selected into a juried “Works on Paper” show.

Installation view, “Quentin Morris: Works on Paper,” Spruance Gallery, photo: Sam Fritch

Arcadia University’s Department of Visual and Performing Arts, in conjunction with Arcadia Exhibitions, is pleased to present the Senior Thesis Exhibition from April 28 through May 14, 2023.

For this show the galleries, corridors, and studios of the Benton Spruance Art Center are transformed into a single expansive exhibition space. For the graduating seniors, the bodies of work on view, encompassing a full range of creative disciplines and approaches, represent the concluding research of their intensive, year-long capstone experience.

Largely untrained as artists, this informal cohort of young painters was rediscovered in the mid-1990s when they were retrospectively named the Highwaymen to refer to their innovation of an entrepreneurial strategy that harnessed landscape painting as a vehicle to bypass low-paying work in the state’s citrus groves. Shut out of the museum and the gallery system by racial segregation and Florida’s Jim Crow laws, the artists traveled the recently completed interstate roads and highways of Florida’s east coast, selling their paintings at reasonable prices “door-to door and store-to-store” from the trunks of their cars. Their mostly white patrons included a growing population of new homeowners as well as hotels, restaurants and doctor’s offices looking for affordable décor during the post-war boom period. In the process, the Highwaymen engendered a unique iteration of romantic regionalism that helped cultivate the iconography of Florida that nurtured the myth of the Sunshine State.

The sixteen paintings on view depict idyllic back-country marshes, windswept beaches, and conditions of light and weather that the artists knew first-hand, all executed in a range of “fast painting” processes. These include the use of “wet-on-wet” techniques, palette knives loaded with paint, and assembly-line methods that could yield up to 20 examples a day. Primarily rendered in oil on Upson board (an inexpensive roofing material) cut in standard sizes from 4 ft by 8 ft. sheets, the paintings were framed by the artists with off-the-shelf crown moldings that facilitated stacked storage and transport that allowed the works to sold while still wet often on the day they were made.

This collaborative enterprise, which some historians estimate yielded more than 200,000 paintings during its heyday from the late 1950s to early 1980s, can now be regarded as a hybrid practice that merged the classical traditions of the Hudson River School with folk art by way of Warhol’s Factory. Described by Artforum critic Zack Hatfield, as “brazenly formulaic but fringed with fantasy, these paintings parade a wonderfully unprecious attitude about living with, and making one’s living from, art.”

In addition to serving as a compelling example of overcoming systemic racism and economic oppression, the phenomenon of the Highwaymen is also a story of formal invention via emulation and subversion. The work was inspired by the success of A.E. “Bean” Backus (1906 -1990), the white mentor of the group known as “the dean of Florida Landscape painting” based in Fort Pierce, Florida. In 1954, Backus formally trained the 19-year-old Harold Newton, convincing him to abandon his focus on religious subjects. The following year, 14-year-old Alfred Hair began attending Backus’s Saturday-morning classes and came to realize, as Highwaymen historian Gary Monroe states, “that as an African American artist he could not attain the same level of success as his white mentor unless he sold scores of paintings at much lower prices.” 

Hair’s solution included developing myriad forms of accelerating the painting production, including contracting friends to prepare boards, build frames, and peddle his paintings on the road. Monroe adds that Hair “didn’t know that by working away to build inventory he would inadvertently strip away artifice to reveal archetypes, imagery that was as sublime as it was descriptive.” His efforts exposed a market for painted fantasies of the region and his success motivated others in his circle to follow his lead. Newton, who is represented in the exhibition by four examples, is now recognized for his technical expertise while Hair is regarded as the group’s driving force and catalyst. 

The exhibition includes works by Al Black (b. 1940), Mary Ann Carroll (1940-2019), Willie Daniels (b. 1950-2021), James Gibson (1938-2017), Alfred Hair (1942-1970), Roy McClendon (b.1932), Harold Newton (1934-1994), and Livingston Roberts (1942-2004).

Their paintings are included in the A.E. Backus Museum (Fort Pierce, Florida) the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (Washington, D.C.), and the Florida Artists Hall of Fame (Tallahassee, Florida).

On Tuesday, March 28, Gary Monroe, Professor of Visual Art, Daytona Beach Community College and author of five books about the Highwaymen (four  published by University Press of Florida), will lecture about the group and their work. Monroe’s talk will take place in the Great Room, University Commons and begin at 6:30 PM.  

All works included in the exhibition are on loan courtesy The Walker Collection of Florida Self-Taught Art.

Special thanks to Lance Walker, Dorothy Hussey, and Gary Monroe with additional gratitude to Nina Johnson, Alex Baker, and John Ollman.

Arcadia Exhibitions, in collaboration with Marketing and Communications, is pleased to present “The Royal Visit: A Juried Student Photography Exhibition,” in the Rosedale Gallery, University Commons February 20 through June 11, 2023.

The exhibition consists of twelve, 18 by 24 inch framed photographs taken by 10 students as part of a competition to document the site of the former Bishop McDevitt High School before it undergoes renovations to serve the future needs of the University. The show was juried by Adam Hess, director of Landman Library.

For example, chalkboard writings, decorations, artwork, equipment, and pictures of faculty and students remained untouched in the building after the school closed at the end of the 2020-2021 academic year. Much of this evidence of previous use is captured in the photographs in the exhibition.

According to Hess, who holds an MFA in photography from Louisiana State University, “The entries for the exhibition were outstanding overall. Of particular interest, the submissions included many close-up details that documented decades of teaching and learning, as well as many religious icons and artifacts that were left behind.”

“Our juror did an excellent job of choosing images that not only recorded the building at this important transitional moment, but also contain the individual artists’ ideas and creative voices.” says Exhibitions Coordinator Matthew Borgen.

Hess made his selections from a pool of 75 images submitted by 25 students. Participating artists include; Caeden Conklin ’25, Willow Edmonds ’26, Claire Griffin ’22, Makenzie Hillegass ’23, Becca Hoyer ’26, Diego McLendon ’26, Jewel T. Miller ’24, Trinity Z Peters ’23, Masai Pines-Elliot ’25, and Kelsie Winship ’26.

“We hope that this exhibition serves as a catalyst for productive conversations about the long-term future of this property and how it may best serve our students, faculty, staff, and the greater Cheltenham Township community.” added Borgen.

Arcadia Exhibitions, in collaboration with Center for Creative Works, is pleased to present “Owen Ahearn-Browning, Timothy O’Donovan and David Schmuckler: Character Studies” from October 18, 2022 to February 5, 2023 in the Rosedale Gallery, University Commons.

The theme of personal narrative unites the work of these three artists, each of whom explore elements of their individual experience through some kind of storytelling. In his spoken-word performances, Owen Ahearn-Browning recites prose poems told through various alter egos – “I Mr. Angry Man Owen,” “I serious and curious kid Owen,” and “I Dwight K Schrute from The Office,” among others – that trace an assortment of moments, lived and experienced through film and television. A true citizen of the world, Timothy O’Donovan has resided in Wales, South Africa, and all over the United States. His art practice traces his travels through landscape painting and extensive writings, which he reads aloud in performances set to music. David Schmuckler’s work is singularly concerned with the aesthetic of horror films which inspire elaborate installations incorporating painting and sculpture. He activates these spaces by physically entering them, fully-costumed as specific characters, and exploring these invented personas through rhythmic, repetitive choreographies.

In this exhibition the artist offers a new body of work, shown as a whole for the first time. Although it includes various forms of body adornment, the work also ventures into the domains of large-scale sculpture, video, and sound, highlighting the artist’s multidisciplinary approach to her studio practice. Undertaken over the preceding five years, these pieces represent Misher’s impulse to document and share the complexity of her daily existence as a mother of twin boys with special needs.

At the heart of the exhibition stands Home, a steel-framed, 12-sided, structure constructed on top of the remains of an outdoor trampoline worn out by Misher’s children. On each of the exterior panels of Home are printed black and white images offering various views of the artist’s backyard in winter. While inside the structure viewers will experience overlapping layers of ambient sound that documents Misher’s family in their household environment. This experiential work brings the audience into a familiar setting while also exposing them to the often hidden nuances of the autism experience.

The use of the defunct trampoline as the physical and metaphorical foundation for this installation is just one example of a thematic strategy employed by Misher throughout this series in which she utilizes “vestige objects” to represent specific moments in her family’s narrative.