Events
Public Lectures, Visiting Artists & Scholars, Majors Events
Upcoming Events
A Continuous Storyline: Opening Reception
5 - 7 pm | Ruffin Gallery
Four Decades of UVA Painters, Curated by Megan Marlatt
January 6 - February 14, 2025
Ruffin Gallery at the University of Virginia is pleased to announce A Continuous Storyline: Four Decades of UVA Painters, curated by Professor of Art Megan Marlatt and featuring the work of eight of Marlatt’s former UVA students from across a thirty-five year career at UVA.
EXHIBITING ARTISTS: John Arnold (‘98), David Askew (‘21), Gina Beavers (‘96), Jackson Casady (‘17), Tori Cherry (‘20), Maggie King Johns (‘14), Matt Kleberg (‘08), Phượng Duyên Hải Nguyễn
DEADLINE: Winston Art Scholarship & Wright Art Award
5 pm | Online
In honor of Naomi Rabb Winston, NSAL established an annual scholarship fund for young visual artists age 16-22. Applicants must demonstrate exceptional talent and promise of future success.
The scholarship funds are for private study, special training or personal advancement in the applicants’ chosen art fields. The funds can be used for college tuition and required art supplies, but not for housing, travel or personal expenses. In most years, as many as eight to ten scholarships are awarded in varying amounts.
From Mamluk Imaginings to the Iraq Revolt of 1920
TBD | TBD
Exploring the Impact of Modernity on the Crafts of the Middle East
Marcus Milwright, University of York/University of Victoria
Marcus Milwright is British Academy Global Professor in History of Art, and a member of the Centre for Medieval Studies.
He is also Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology in the Department of Art History and Visual Studies, University of Victoria, Canada.
Co-sponsored by the Islamic Worlds Initiative and Interdisciplinary Archaeology Program
Image: Detail from a chased brass platter showing events in Hindiyya, Iraq, in October 1920. Private Collection
A Continuous Storyline: CLOSES
5 pm | Ruffin Gallery
Four Decades of UVA Painters, Curated by Megan Marlatt
January 6 - February 14, 2025
Ruffin Gallery at the University of Virginia is pleased to announce A Continuous Storyline: Four Decades of UVA Painters, curated by Professor of Art Megan Marlatt and featuring the work of eight of Marlatt’s former UVA students from across a thirty-five year career at UVA.
EXHIBITING ARTISTS: John Arnold (‘98), David Askew (‘21), Gina Beavers (‘96), Jackson Casady (‘17), Tori Cherry (‘20), Maggie King Johns (‘14), Matt Kleberg (‘08), Phượng Duyên Hải Nguyễn
Lindner Lecture: Building an Ontology of Art: Hindustani Painting as a Case Study
6:30 pm | Campbell 160
Murad Khan Mumtaz, Associate Professor in the Art Department, Williams College (and UVA Art Department Alum)
Islamic art is often misrepresented as an iconophobic tradition. As a result of this assumption, the polyvalence of figural artworks made for Hindustan’s Muslim audiences has remained hidden in plain view. By combining an art historical survey with an analysis of primary Indo-Persian literature, this talk shows how figurative painting was intimately linked to a unique Indo-Muslim religious expression that had a wide circulation across South Asia.
Murad examines historical intersections of art, literature and religious expression in South Asia, with a primary focus on Indo-Muslim patronage. By combining art history with textual analysis, his recent book, Faces of God: Images of Devotion in Indo-Muslim Painting (Brill, 2023), examines the cultural contexts within which these Islamicate images of devotion were made and viewed. Murad is also an artist trained in traditional Hindustani painting techniques which he teaches at Williams. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions internationally.
Lindner Lecture: Jeanne Vaccaro, Construction as Commitment: Nicki Green's Alchemical Clay
TBD | Campbell Hall
This talk takes sculptor Nicki Green's assertion that "clay is a trans material" as its starting point. In clay, the artist uses hand-making to study rituals of belonging and becoming, conveying construction as one iteration of commitment. The talk will engage the range of Green's practice as anchored in the ecstatic mysticism of the everyday.
Jeanne Vaccaro is a scholar and curator of contemporary art and public practice. Her writing and social practice trace the idiosyncrasy of the archive to activate liberation histories and coalitions. Jeanne’s book in process, Handmade: feelings and textures of transgender, considers the felt labor of making identity, and was awarded the Arts Writers Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation. Jeanne received her Ph.D. in Performance Studies at New York University under the mentorship of José Esteban Muñoz. She is Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Museum Studies at the University of Kansas, and affiliate faculty at the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction.
Amy Chan's "Double Happiness" in Shannon CLOSES
Alderman Library 2nd floor lobby
To create the piece "Double Happiness", Amy Chan asked the UVA Asian / Pacific Islander / South Asian American community to submit greetings, proverbs, and colloquial sayings that are important to their cultural identity. Text left to right reads:
Ganbare, Japanese, to persevere
Double Happiness, Chinese, joy and unity
Hwaiting, Korean, you got this!
Padayon, Visayan dialect / Philippines, to carry on
Kya baat hai, Hindi, how amazing!
All places are ours, and all people are our kin, Tamil
Andamu, Telugu, inner beauty
Sudah makan, Malaysian, have you eaten?
Elena Yu at New City Arts
New City Arts Welcome Gallery
In October 2025, New City Arts will present an exhibition of work by Elena Yu.
Elena Yu’s exhibition will respond to lichen-covered headstones and historically significant burial grounds. With this work, she aims to ask: “What constitutes care of burial grounds, and how might interspecies knowledge, respect and tending enable new ways of interacting with sites of human memorialization?”
Elena Yu is an interdisciplinary artist and arts organizer from Los Angeles, CA. Her practice weaves together many mediums and intentions including textiles, performance, drawing, sculpture, archival research and community practice. She has exhibited, performed, facilitated workshops and attended artist residences throughout the United States, and is the co-founder of The Firehouse (@thefirehousejt) and Sun Spot (@sun___spot), two artist-run spaces in Joshua Tree, CA.
Elena is currently a New City Arts Fellow, Artist-in-Residence at University of California Santa Barbara, an Incubator Artist at McGuffey Art Center, studio member at Visible Records, and the Ruffin Gallery and Visiting Artist Coordinator at UVA’s Department of Art.