Visiting Artist Lecture Series

Ifeanyi Anene

Thursday, Nov. 17
Ifeanyi Anene is an artist originally from Lagos, Nigeria. He received his BSc in Psychology from the University of Lagos in 2010. Informed by his childhood in Western Nigeria and his background in psychology, Anene’s paintings “explore the ‘position’ where nature, society, and the general order of things meet”. In Anene’s words his work, “sheds light on social change, political advocacy, religion, moral adjudication, social welfare, and more.” He has shown his work at a variety of venues, including most recently at Richardson Civic Art Society (Richardson, TX), Rockwall Art League (Rockwall, TX), and the 2022 Other Art Fair (Brooklyn,NY). In 2022 he was awarded 1st place for his work in Materials: Hard+Soft at the Greater Denton Arts Council. He currently lives and works in Dallas, TX.

SMU’s Division of Art hosts an ongoing series of lectures and panels by an exciting group of artists, critics and curators. This series of discursive events is not only a crucial part of the graduate and undergraduate curriculum, it also provides a space for the Dallas community to engage with art and ideas.

Lectures are made possible with generous support from Debbie and Eric Green, Anonymous donor, Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo, the Dorothea Leonhardt Fund at the Communities Foundation of Texas Inc. and Ignite Art Dallas. 

Katie Bell

Thursday, April 1
Katie Bell is an artist originally from Rockford, Illinois (b.1985).  She received her BA from Knox College and her MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. Bell has shown her work at a variety of venues, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Smack Mellon, Locust Projects, and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. She was an artist in residence at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation’s Space Program and awarded a fellowship in painting by the New York Foundation for the Arts. Bell lives and works in New York, NY.

Surabhi Ghosh

Thursday, April 15 
Surabhi Ghosh is an artist and educator based in Montreal, Quebec, where she is Associate Professor of Fibres & Material Practices in the Department of Studio Arts at Concordia University. Recent projects have been exhibited at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle, and Heaven Gallery in Chicago. Upcoming solo exhibitions will take place at Hawthorn Contemporary in Milwaukee, Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, P. E. I., and the Maison des arts de Laval. Using repetitive actions like stitching, cutting, and beading, Ghosh exploits the tensions and imperfections in handmade patterns to give material and spatial form to cyclical narratives of pride and shame. Incorporating her experiences as a North American descendant of South Asian ancestors, her recent work investigates the transmission of cultural identity and nationalist ideology to and from the diaspora.

Anh-Thuy Nguyen

Thursday, September 16 
Anh-Thuy Nguyen is a multi-media/transdisciplinary artist, whose work spans from photography and video to installation and performance art. Using her personal history as a resource, Anh-Thuy's work delves deeply into conflicting emotions and thoughts through the portrayal of often strikingly strange yet hauntingly beautiful visual manifestations of gain and loss. She received a BFA in Photography from The University of Arizona and an MFA in Photography/ Video from Southern Methodist University. Anh-Thuy’s works are in permanent collections of the Amarillo Museum of Art, Tucson Museum of Art, and the Center for Photography at Woodstock among others. She is based in Tucson, Arizona, where she is the head of the photography program at Pima Community College.

Billie Mandle

Thursday, November 4
Billie Mandle is an artist working in California and Massachusetts. Her quiet photographs explore diverse subjects such as Catholic confessionals, Emily Dickinson’s bedroom, and a shelter for refugees. Her projects have been supported by grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, and her work has been featured in publications such as Aperture, Cabinet, and Wired. She received a BA in biology and English from Williams College and an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She is an associate professor of photography at MassArt.

Jemila MacEwan

Thursday, November 18 
MacEwan has performed and exhibited extensively internationally including; ARoS Museum (Denmark), The Australian Consulate-General (NYC), Pioneer Works (NYC), Victori+MO (NYC), The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (NYC), NYCXDESIGN (USA), BRIC Biennial III (NYC), Skaftfell Center for Visual Art (Iceland) and The Castlemaine State Festival (Australia). They have been invited to host and participate in public talks and discussions on themes of intercultural practice, mental health, contemporary animism and environmental accountability. MacEwan has been generously supported by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Australia Council for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Café Royal Foundation, the Dame Joan Sutherland Fund, the Ian Potter Cultural Council and the Graduate Women of Victoria.

Faculty Artist Lectures