Banner image: Artwork in Hard Fork, exhibition by CC Calloway. Photo courtesy of the artist.

To celebrate the start of the Fall 2023 semester, the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia welcomes friends and members of the community to the Back to School Exhibition Opening, an occasion to meet six new faculty members and an incoming cohort of graduate students in studio art, art education, and art history while enjoying four exhibitions on view in the Dodd Galleries.

The exhibition opening, on Friday August 11 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Lamar Dodd School of Art on 270 River Road, is free and open to the public. 

The four featured exhibitions include Twelve Paintings by New York-based artist Stacie Maya Johnson; Hard Fork, a solo exhibition consisting of a multi-channel video installation, photographs, and prints by Athens-based artist and School of Art lecturer CC Calloway; Counterpoint – Part I: The Tambour,* a collaborative kinetic sculpture of an 8 foot high by 15 foot in diameter drum led by sculpture associate professor Martijn van Wagtendonk; and MYSTERIUM, a project curated by Visiting Artist Craig Dongoski during the 2023 Summer Solstice in which participants created a collective drawing over a 36-hour period at the School of Art.

*Please note: to launch the kinetic sculpture in Counterpoint — Part I: The Tambour, you will need to deposit a quarter in a coin machine! Don't forget your loose change.

View of Counterpoint – Part I: The Tambour, exhibition organized by Martijn van Wagtendonk with collaborators. Image courtesy of the artists.

Set against this colorful backdrop, guests are invited to meet six new faculty members in the School of Art: 

• Elizabeth Saari Browne, assistant professor of Art History and Women’s Studies, whose research focuses on 18th- and 19th-century European Art and Architecture, aesthetics, gender and representation, and materiality in art history.
• Lindsey Camelio, academic professional associate in graphic design, who will oversee a new student-run design studio at the School of Art.
• Kimberly Lyle, assistant professor of sculpture, whose current practice investigates our human relationship to systems of language, learning, and technology.
• Catherine Trugman, lecturer in interior design, whose years of experience in both commercial and residential design will translate to professional mentorship and instruction for students at the School of Art and in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.
• Jason Wech, lecturer in interior design, who explores innovations in furniture design and manufacturing through the industrial age and has prior experience teaching at the School of Art in a part-time capacity since 2019.
• Amanda Manowski, lecturer in scientific illustration, who will teach courses involving technical and technological mastery of the field stemming from her career in biomedical animation.

Visitors will also have the opportunity to meet 18 new graduate students pursuing degrees in studio art, art history, and art education at the School of Art. The students hail from across the U.S. and from as far away as South Korea and reflect a wide range of perspectives and interests. Among their ranks is a multimedia artist from rural Utah whose primary medium is trash; an art historian researching performance art with a background in child psychology and religion; an artist from the rust belt who makes models, video games, sculptures, and digital operas; a photographer with cerebral palsy who makes photographs about disability using only one hand; and an art educator from Iran researching the intersection of art, protest and social media. 

“We are extremely excited about this year’s cohort, which is among the most talented and creative in recent memory,” said Isabelle Loring Wallace, associate director of research and graduate studies. 

Artwork in Stacie Maya Johnson: Twelve Paintings. Photo courtesy of the artist.