Visiting Artist Lecture | Rebecca Kamen | LAMAR DODD SCHOOL OF ART

Speaker Name

Rebecca Kamen

University or Organization

Northern Virginia Community College

Speaker's Website

The Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture series has brought over 80 distinguished guests to the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia since 2002. Visiting Artists and Scholars spend three days on campus interacting with students and faculty, the culmination of which is a public lecture on the subject of the artist’s or scholar’s work.

"Curiosity and the Creative Process as Self Care"

The pandemic has been a transformational experience in terms of self-reflection. It has provided time and space to explore my capacity to be curious, to see crisis as potential opportunity for discovery, and to express these insights and discoveries through my art practice.

Coronavirus has inspired a new perspective for the development of art, and continues to serve as a catalyst for seeking insight and a positive outcome from a difficult circumstance. It has awakened a cycle of healing and discovery that has manifested in recent artwork.

This presentation will explore how crisis, curiosity and the creative process not only generates unexpected opportunities for discovery, but also informs artwork which fosters new connections between art and science. The presentation will also discuss how dyslexia, brain surgery and the pandemic continue to provide insight and inspiration in my work as an artist.

Artist bio

Rebecca Kamen, sculptor and lecturer on the intersections of art and science, seeks ‘the truth’ through observation. Her artwork is informed by wide-ranging research into cosmology, history, philosophy, and by connecting common threads that flow across various scientific fields to capture and re-imagine what the scientists see.

She has investigated scientific rare books and manuscripts at the libraries of the American Philosophical Society, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and the Cajal Institute in Madrid, utilizing these significant scientific collections as a catalyst in the creation of her work.

Kamen has researched on collaborative projects at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University, the Kavli Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rochester Institute of Technology, and at the National Institutes of Health. Selected as a Salzburg Global Seminar fellow in 2015, she was invited to Austria to present her work as part of a seminar titled: The Neuroscience of Art: What are the Sources of Creativity and Innovation.

Kamen has exhibited and lectured both nationally and internationally including China, Hong Kong, Korea, Austria, Chile, Egypt, Spain, Australia and Singapore. She has been the recipient of a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship, a Pollack Krasner Foundation Fellowship, two Strauss Fellowships, and a Travel Grant from the Chemical Heritage Foundation. As artist in residence in the neuroscience program at National Institutes of Health, Kamen has interpreted and transformed neuroscience research into sculptural form. Her artwork is represented in many private and public collections.

As professor emeritus of art at Northern Virginia Community College, Professor Kamen continues to investigate how the arts and creativity can enhance innovation and our understanding of science. An outcome of Kamen’s research has included the development of an art component for George Mason University’s Aspiring Scientist Summer Internship Program (ASSIP), encouraging science interns to use the arts as an innovative way of interpreting their research.

Rebecca served as a Nifty Fifty (times 4) speaker for the 2014-2015 season. These speakers are selected for their unique ability to inspire the next generation of students to pursue careers in the STEM fields.

Currently, Professor Kamen is serving as artist in residence in The Computational Neuroscience Initiative and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania.