Visiting Artist, Scholar & Designer Program

The Visiting Artist, Scholar & Designer Program fosters participation and collaboration with both the institution and the MSU Denver community. An integral part of MSU Denver Art’s mission, the Visiting Artist, Designer & Scholar Program is an invaluable resource for students, faculty, and the community. The program is an interdisciplinary and culturally inclusive initiative, bringing nationally and internationally renowned artists, designers, and scholars to engage with the Department of Art. All lectures are free and open to the public and take place at the Center for Visual Art or online as Microsoft Teams streaming events.

Melissa Grant

Melissa Grant is a founding member of the High Altitude Bioprospecting (HAB) team, developing methods for the detection and culture of microbes from the stratosphere and understanding the desire for such a blue skies endeavour. This research has taken the HAB team from Black Rock Desert in Nevada to the sub arctic in Northern Finland to the Venice archipelago in Italy in their search for microbes. The microbes found have been associated with regions – such as Arctic and even Antarctic species – and have formed the basis of several art-science exhibitions.⁠

Monday, March 11, 2024 at 11:00am in AR 296. Free pizza provided.

Join us Monday, March 11, 2024 at 11:00am in AR296, for a Visting Artist talk with Melissa Grant. Melissa is a founding member of the High Altitude Bioprospecting (HAB) team, developing methods for the detection and culture of microbes from the stratosphere and understanding the desire for such a blue skies endeavour. This research has taken the HAB team from Black Rock Desert in Nevada to the sub arctic in Northern Finland to the Venice archipelago in Italy in their search for microbes. The microbes found have been associated with regions – such as Arctic and even Antarctic species - and have formed the basis of several art-science exhibitions.⁠

Darya Warner

Darya works at the intersection of art and science by bridging the creative process and growth/connections with human and non-human actors through the prism of Climate Change. By addressing site-specific history, ecology, and local systems of communication Darya aims to mine a new form of hybrid space for “intermatter” interaction with an emphasis on the interconnectivity of intelligence across species.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024 at 5:00pm at Center for Visual Art, 965 Santa Fe Drive, Denver

Join us Wednesday, February 28, 2024 at 5:00pm at Center for Visual Art, 965 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, for a Visting Artist talk with Darya Warner. Darya works at the intersection of art and science by bridging the creative process and growth/connections with human and non-human actors through the prism of Climate Change. By addressing site-specific history, ecology, and local systems of communication Darya aims to mine a new form of hybrid space for

Daina Warren

Daina Warren is a member of the Akamihk Montana First Nation in Maskwacis, Alberta. She holds a Master’s in Critical and Curatorial Studies and was selected to participate in the International First Nations Curators exchange in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. She won the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellency in 2018 and was Director of Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery for over ten years. She was most recently the Artist in Residency Program Manager at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Warren also curated the exhibition Transformative Power: Indigenous Feminisms at the Vicki Myhren Gallery in Denver in 2022 and will share ideas behind this exhibition at her public lecture at the CVA.

Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 5:00pm at Center for Visual Art, 965 Santa Fe Drive, Denver

Visiting Artist, Scholar and Designer Program: Daina Warren Speaks on Wednesday, October 18, 2023, 5:00pm, at the Center for Visual Art, 965 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, CO. Daina Warren is a member of the Akamihk Montana First Nation in Maskwacis, Alberta. She holds a Master's in Critical and Curatorial Studies and was selected to participate in the International First Nations Curators exchange in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. She won the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellency in 2018 and was Director of Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery for over ten years. She was most recently the Artist in Residency Program Manager at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Warren also curated the exhibition Transformative Power: Indigenous Feminisms at the Vicki Myhren Gallery in Denver in 2022 and will share ideas behind this exhibition at her public lecture at the CVA.

Virgil Ortiz

Virgil Ortiz is a Pueblo artist known for his pottery and fashion design from Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico. Ortiz makes a variety of pottery including traditional Cochiti figurative pottery, experimental figurative pottery, and traditional vessels. For nearly two decades Ortiz has told the story of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt through his artwork, simultaneously joining traditional pottery forms with sci-fi fantasy. His material choices and techniques draw from the past, while his imagery is both ultramodern and futuristic.

April 19th at 5:00pm at Center for Visual Art, 965 Santa Fe Drive, Denver

About the Artist - Virgil Ortiz is a Pueblo artist known for his pottery and fashion design from Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico. Ortiz makes a variety of pottery including traditional Cochiti figurative pottery, experimental figurative pottery, and traditional vessels. For nearly two decades Ortiz has told the story of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt through his artwork, simultaneously joining traditional pottery forms with sci-fi fantasy. His material choices and techniques draw from the past, while his imagery is both ultramodern and futuristic.

Rex Koontz

Curating a Portable Universe: Ancient and Contemporary Indigenous Splendor in Colombia

This talk will focus on the little-known but spectacular tradition of Indigenous goldwork beginning about 2,000 years ago and continuing until the European invasion and its contemporary importance to the community of art historians, to our museum colleagues in Colombia, to various audiences in Houston, and to indigenous stakeholders. How does art history articulate with native perspectives and desires? How can art history grow its audience– and become more global– while at the same time examining its own past?

Wednesday, October 5, 2022 @ 5:30pm at Center for Visual Art, 965 Santa Fe Drive, Denver
Rex Koontz, Wednesday, October 5, 2022 @ 5:30pm at Center for Visual Art, 965 Santa Fe Drive, Denver.This talk will focus on the little-known but spectacular tradition of Indigenous goldwork beginning about 2,000 years ago and continuing until the European invasion and its contemporary importance to the community of art historians, to our museum colleagues in Colombia, to various audiences in Houston, and to indigenous stakeholders. How does art history articulate with native perspectives and desires? How can art history grow its audience-- and become more global-- while at the same time examining its own past?

Visiting Artist Announcements & Reminders

Announcements and reminders about the Visiting Artist, Scholar & Designer program are posted on the Art Department’s Facebook page.

For additional information please contact Dr. Jessica Weiss at [email protected].

Spring 2022

Anna Jo Beck

Wednesday, Feb 23, 2022 @ 5:30pm  Anna Jo Beck is a designer, illustrator, and zinester based in Chicago. Her passion for layout is reflected in her professional work as a magazine and book layout designer, as well as her personal work as a self-publisher of her own writing and design through zines.

Watch Event Recording:

zines for sale | illustration work | design work

Fall 2021

Jennifer Ling Datchuk

Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 1PM Jennifer Ling Datchuk’s work is an exploration of her layered identity – as a woman, a Chinese woman, as an “American,” as a third culture kid. Trained in ceramics, Datchuk works with porcelain and other materials often associated with traditional women’s work, such as textiles and hair, to discuss fragility, beauty, femininity, intersectionality, identity, and personal history. Datchuk holds an MFA in Artisanry from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and a BFA in Crafts from Kent State University. She is an Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Texas State University and lives and maintains a studio practice in San Antonio, Texas.

THURSDAY, OCT 14, 2021, 1PM Jennifer Ling Datchuk’s work is an exploration of her layered identity – as a woman, a Chinese woman, as an quote, American, unquote, and as a third culture kid.

Pamela Patton

Wednesday March 17, 2021 at 5PM Pamela Patton is director of the Index of Medieval Art in the Department of Art & Archaeology at Princeton University and co-editor of the journal Studies in Iconology.

Pamela Patton, Visiting Artist, will speak on Wednesday March 17th at the CVA.

Thomas Evans

Wednesday November 18, 2020 at 1PM Thomas Evans, a.k.a. DETOUR, is a Denver based artist whose large-scale, public artworks reflect his experimentations in visual art, music, and interactive technologies.

Thomas Evans, a.k.a. DETOUR will speak at the CVA on Wednesday November 18, 2020 at 1PM.

Mike Calway-Fagen

Wednesday October 21, 2020 at 5PM Mike Calway-Fagen is a multi-media artist, writer, and the curator/director of Stove Works, a contemporary gallery and artist residency in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Calway-Fagen aims to traverse the traditional barrier between artwork and viewer in order to explore nebulous networks of subjectivity. Through collage, installation, and video, he invites the viewer to experience with him the act of questioning the relationship between the known and the unknown, the imagined and the remembered. Calway-Fagen received an MFA from the University of California, San Diego, and in addition to exhibiting work across North America has curated exhibitions that explore the nuances of perception and experience including Land and Sea, a joint project between Stove Works and the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, and Blue in the Face at Gallery Protocol in Gainesville, Florida.

Mike Calway-Fagen is a multi-media artist, writer, and the curator/director of Stove Works who will speak virtually on Wednesday October 21, 2020 at 5PM.

Erin Peters

Wednesday September 23, 2020 at 5:30PM Erin Peters is an egyptologist and curator who researches ancient polychromy and uses modern technology to simulate lost color with projected light.

Erin Peters will speak at the CVA on Wednesday September 23, 2020 at 5:30PM

Cannupa Hanska Luger

Wednesday, August 26, 2020 at 5PM Cannupa Hanska Luger is a multidisciplinary artist whose works interweave performance and political action to communicate stories of twenty-first-century Indigeneity. Raised on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, he is of Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota, and European descent. Luger’s monumental installations, which combine ceramics, video, sound, fiber, steel, and repurposed materials, provoke diverse audiences to engage with Indigenous peoples apart from the lens of colonial social structuring. They often include a call to action to protect land from capitalist exploitation. Luger received a BFA in studio arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts and has received numerous fellowships including a Creative Capital Fellowship, a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, a A Blade of Grass Artist Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art, and the inaugural Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship from the Center For Crafts. His works have been exhibited internationally, including at the Gardiner Museum and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.

Cannupa Hanska Luger is a multidisciplinary artist and will speak Wednesday, August 26, 2020 at 5PM.

subRosa

Faith Wilding and Hyla Willis are the founders of subRosaa (cyber)feminist art collective that combines art, social activism, and politics to explore and critique the intersections of information and bio technologies on women’s bodies, lives, and work. Since its founding in 1998, subRosa has developed trans-disciplinary, performative, and discursive practices that create open-ended environments where participants engage with objects, texts, digital technologies, and critical learning experiences while interacting with each other and the artists.

Faith Wilding and Hyla Willis are the founders of subRosa.

David Lefkowitz

David Lefkowitz ‘s paintings, installation, and mixed-media assemblages address paradoxes of perception both monumental and mundane. His work explores the blurry boundaries between mediated and direct experience, often centered on perceived tensions between the human-built environment and the natural world and combining Western traditions of representational oil painting with the flotsam and jetsam of consumer culture to draw attention to the complex relations between image and object, past and present, and nature and culture. Recent solo exhibitions have been held at Carleton College, the Soo Visual Arts Center in Minneapolis, the Northfield Arts Guild, and the Rochester Art Center. Lefkowitz is represented by the Carrie Secrist Gallery in Chicago and is a Professor of Art at Carleton College in Northfield, MN where he teaches painting, drawing, and Critical Issues in Contemporary Art.

David Lefkowitz Artwork painted on cardboard boxes.

Adé Hogue

Adé Hogue is an art director, designer, and lettering artist specializing in hand-created type. He has worked with various agencies in Chicago for brands such as Nike, ALDI, Mercedes-Benz, Moen, Teavana, and The Atlantic. Doing more than pushing pixels, he takes ideas and turn them into something physical using his hands to blend the beautiful with the practical. Adé has presented his personal work in exhibitions such as Typeforce, an annual juried showcase of typographic artists in Chicago. He has also been an invited speaker at design and creativity conferences such as Top Con, Creative South, and Adobe MAX. In the fall of 2017 he was selected as one of PRINT Magazine’s New Visual Artists—an annual roundup of 15 of the best creatives today under 30. Currently, Adé runs his own design studio and freelances for a range of clients while teaching lettering and typography courses at DePaul University.

Ade Hogue process photo- tracing letters on tracing paper.

2019: Jennifer Schmidt; Damián Sainz; Andrea Polli
2018: Kate Thomas; The Yes MenJoo Yeon Woo 
2017: Golnar AdiliRachel HarperApril Jehan Morris; Sixto-Juan Zavala
2016: Joanne PillsburyDeb Sokolow; Ladies of the Press
2015: Julie Poitras Santos; Ian Boyden; Mwangi Hutter; Abayomi Ola.
2014: Sean Caulfield; Alberto Aguilar; Sanam Emami; Leah Buechley.
2013: Beryl Korot; Gary Setzer; Helen Shirk.
2012: Jorge Lucero; Michael Jones-McKean; Deborah Aschheim.
2011: Heather Mae Erickson; Harry Gamoba Jr.; Dr. Mark Van Stone; Chelsea Knight.
2010: Thomas Dutton; Jean Dibble; Krysten Cunningham.
2009: Will Wilson; Dara Greenwald; Karla Hackenmiller.
2008: John Valadez; Brent Green; Sergei Isupov; Ben Fry.
2007: Joanna Frueh; Tip Toland.
2006: Mia Mulvey-Fetterman; Marvin Sweet; Alfred Quiroz.
2005: Sarah Jaeger; Richard Notkin.