Gallery Events

RECONSTRUCT: TRACI GRIFFIN & ANA KAPODISTRIA
February 25 – March 22, 2013
Lecture and Reception: Thursday, February 28
Lecture: 5:30 pm Church Fine Arts Building, Rm. 153
Reception to follow in Sheppard Contemporary Gallery, Church Fine Arts Building

RECONSTRUCT: TRACI GRIFFIN & ANA KAPODISTRIA

Sheppard Contemporary invites you to our upcoming exhibition “Reconstruct,” which features two artists from the San Francisco area – Traci Grifffin and Ana Kapodistria -­‐ who use visual language to create photographic images which reconsider our natural environments. Both artists are reexamining the ordinary by reconstructing elements of the environment in order to transform their images. Each of their approaches, while inspirationally different, relate to visualization of mental processes and the internal experience of an environment.

Kapodistria  works  with  multiple  and  long  exposures  to  record  performances  within  the landscape  exploring  ideas  of  interaction  and  the  relationship  between  nature  and  the manmade.  Griffin  uses  the  camera  as  a  tool  to  share  her  unique  vision  of  the  world through  impossible  symmetries  that  fracture  and  visually  reconstruct  the  landscape.  
Please  join  us  on  February  28  to  hear  the  artists  discuss  their  work  and  the installation within  Sheppard  Contemporary.

Zoe Bray Lecture and Reception

The Sheppard Contemporary Gallery and the University of Nevada, Reno are proud to present:

INTIMACY: ZOE BRAY

The Sheppard Contemporary Gallery in Reno, Nevada is proud to launch its Spring program with the first, U.S. solo exhibition of British-French-Basque painter Zoe Bray. The gallery will show a series of her portraits and landscapes which will appeal to art lovers for their personal touch to both realism and naturalism.

Zoe Bray received an MA in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) and a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute in Florence (Italy) Bray trained as a painter at the Charles Cecil Studio and the Florence Academy of Art, following the classical tradition of sight-size painting that also inspired many early 20th century American painters, notably John Singer Sargent and Cecilia Beaux, but which has largely been lost since. She has also worked with the internationally acclaimed realist painters Antonio Lopez García and Guillermo Muñoz Vera in Spain. Bray has been inspired by masters such as Diego de Velazquez, as well as holding connection to contemporary artists like Paula Rego and Jenny Saville, whose own approach to painting may also at times be called ethnographic.

Truly a citizen of the world, Bray has lived in Paris, Rome, Brussels, Madrid, London, Edinburgh, Mexico City, and recently moved to Reno to take up a position as assistant professor at the University of Nevada Reno’s Center for Basque Studies, where she researches and teaches on Art and Politics.

Not surprisingly, identity is central to the work of this artist, and Bray paints her subjects directly from life, seeking to go beyond surface appearance and representation to grasp their beauty, spirituality and psychology. She embraces the fact that her anthropological studies bleed into her paintings; in fact, it is integral to how she works and what she is trying to relay to her viewers. Amongst the portraits on show, the public will find those of some notable figures of contemporary Basque culture, including the sculptor Nestor Basterretxea as well as local figures such as artist Joan Arrizabalaga. This exhibition will invite visitors into the stories of the people and places they find inside and ask them to engage with the larger story of artists' place in the relaying of history.

Bray's work has been exhibited world wide and can be found in public and private collections in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdoms, Brazil, and the US.

Website: www.zoebray.net

Blog: zoebraynews.blogspot.com

Amy Sacksteder : "Gallery-as-Studio” Residency + “Will Have Been” Exhibition

Nov. 5, Opening Lecture, 5:30 p.m., Sheppard Gallery
Nov. 6 - 15, Open Studio, for hours call 775-784-6658
Nov. 15, Closing Lecture, 5:30 p.m., Wells Fargo Auditorium, Knowledge Center rm. 124, and Reception, 6:30-8 p.m. Sheppard Gallery

Please join us for one of our most exciting events, Gallery-as-Studio Artist Residency! After requesting nominations from around the country, a shortlist of 10 artists was created and invitations to apply were sent. One artist will be in residence for two weeks in Reno between Nov. 5 and 15 using the gallery space as their studio to create new work, which will result in an exhibition after they leave. The artist was selected based on their interest in the local Reno area, their response to the space, and availability to the public and student population. The winning nomination is Amy Sacksteder. She is an associate professor of art at Eastern Michigan University; she received her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Dayton in 2001 and received her master’s degree in painting from Northern Illinois University in 2004. Sacksteder has been featured in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally, attended artist residencies in Illinois, Newfoundland, Southern France, Philadelphia, Budapest and Reykjavi­k, and published in journals such as New American Paintings.

Artist's Website

 

Prospectives '12 International Festival of Digital Art, Director Joe DeLappe

Lecture: 5:30pm, August 30, 2012
Location: Wells Fargo Auditorium, Knowledge Center
Reception: 6:30p - Sheppard Gallery, CFA 162

Firelei Baez

Lecture: 5:30pm, August 30, 2012
Location: Wells Fargo Auditorium, Knowledge Center
University of Nevada Reno

Marilee Salvator

Lecture 1pm, February 2, 2012
CFA room 204
University of Nevada Reno

Marilee Salvator received her BFA from Illinois State University, Normal, IL in 2000 and her MFA degree from University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM in 2004. She has taught printmaking and design at University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB and currently teaching at Bloomsburg University, Pennsylvania.

Marilee’s artwork ranges from traditional 2-d prints to mixed print media/
installation. Her work tends to flux back and forth between issues of
autobiography, feminist ideals and abstraction. The images were created
through various printmaking techniques including monotype and silkscreen.

Marilee Salvator’s has been included in many exhibitions throughout the
United Sates, Canada, South Korea, China, Poland, Italy and Romania.
She had her solo shows at Open Studio in Toronto, Canada, College of
Southern Las Vegas and Bloomsburg University, and the 2nd Annual Sanbao
Printmaking Exhibition and Symposium at Shanxi University in China.

 

Kiel Johnson

Tuesday February 7, 2012
Lecture 5:30 pm Room 124 Knowledge Center Auditorium

Kiel Johnson's drawings and sculptures tell tales; layered narratives speak of his travels
and adventures through everyday life. His works become a springboard for metaphorical investigations of the world he inhabits. Although both factual fictions and absurd scenarios, they are ultimately testaments to observation that force us to question the concrete and truthful. What at first might appear safe and secure will be, upon further inspection, very precarious.

Johnson received his MFA from California State University, Long Beach, California and
B.F.A. from University of Kansas in Lawrence He has received numerous awards and honors
including the Pollock-Krasner Grant, 2008; Durfee Foundation ARC Grant, 2007; and the
CSULB Outstanding Creative Achievement Award, 2003. He has had solo exhibitions in New
York, Los Angeles, Kansas City and Irvine. His work appears in several important public and
private collections including the Creative Artist Agency (CA), Tubert International(CA), Steve
Martin Collection (NY), Todd Oldham (NY), and Sprint World Headquarters (MO).

Johnson lives and works in Los Angeles, California, and his work is represented by Mark
Moor Gallery, Santa Monica, California and Davison Contemporary in New York.