Gallery Talk via Skype featuring Matthew Willemsen
Signified Matrix
December 1, 2009, 4:30-5:30 p.m.
Thompson Gallery, Roe Art Building

This presentation is open to all students and fulfills the Art Department CLP requirement.

Matthew Willemsen, Assistant Professor of Art/Graphic Design at Minnesota State University in Mankato, will broadcast a gallery talk over the Internet using the web video-conference software known as Skype. He will discuss his artistic process as it pertains to the Thompson Gallery exhibit Signified Matrix. Matthew Willemsen was inspired by the "ubiquitous and sometimes pervasive nature of visual communication." In his body of art work, he has explored the perceptions that brands create for themselves, the meaning of symbols, and how these forms of communication have evolved. His work is relevant to the fields of marketing and communication, as well as contemporary graphic arts.

Matthew Willemsen, M.F.A is currently an Assistant Professor of Art in Graphic Design at Minnesota State University in Mankato. He received a Master of Fine Arts in 2000 with an emphasis in graphic design from the University of Iowa. He has also taught graphic design at Louisiana Tech University School of Art in Ruston, Louisiana. He has experience as a freelance graphic designer and has commissioned several designs for film studios, restaurants, magazines, websites, etc. across the country.

Alumni News

Carly Porter '04 began working on a masters in art history at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA in the fall of 2004. She finished her degree in 2007 and immediately started work towards her Ph.D., specializing in 19th century art. She is planning to graduate in the spring of 2010. Carly has also been teaching art history courses at Virginia Commonwealth. In the summers of 2005 and 2008, she taught at the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts Academy program. This past summer, Carly taught at VCU and traveled to carry out research for her doctoral dissertation.

Rebecca Gieseking '09, dual art and chemistry major, began her studies at Furman when she was only fifteen years old. During the summer of 2008, Rebecca served as the Paintings Conservation Intern for the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute (MCI) in Suitland, MD. As part of her internship, she co-wrote an article entitled Preserving Modern Marvels: The Plastics Collection at the National Museum of American History, which was presented at the Conference for the Conservation and Restoration of Contemporary Works of Art held in Paris on June 24-26, 2009. The article was published in a journal from that conference.

Rebecca Gieseking is currently a graduate student in the Furman University Chemistry Department.

A link to the journal: (in French)
http://sfiic.free.fr/publications/art_contemp.htm

Information about the conference: (in French)
http://www.maisoninnovationcg63.fr/Art-d-aujourd-hui-Patrimoine-de.html

Previous News and Events

ACS (American Colleges of the South) - Furman Conference on Sustainability and the Environment
Green Art – Rachel Simmons (Rollins College, Winterpark, FL), Liz Ward (Trinity University, San Antonio, TX), and Arturo Lindsay (Spelman College, Atlanta, GA)
September 12, 2009, 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Littlejohn Lecture Room, Roe Art Building

This presentation is open to all students and fulfills the Art Department CLP requirement.

Gallery Talk featuring Glen Miller
Ruminations with a Charred Vine
September 23, 2009, 5:00-6:00 p.m.
Thompson Gallery, Roe Art Building

This presentation is open to all students and fulfills the Art Department CLP requirement.

Glen Miller’s drawings were created at the Sheffield Wood Gallery located at the Greenville Fine Arts Center. The materials used were charcoal and paper. The drawings took 18 working days and allowed for public viewing as well as help from Fine Arts Students.

Miller is from Tennessee and received his bachelor’s of Fine Arts in drawing and painting from East Tennessee State University. He continued his art education for a master’s in Art and Education from the University of South Florida, and furthered his graduate study at University of Tennessee.

Since 1979 he has been teaching South Carolinians art, including teaching at public high school for 16 years. Currently he is a professor at Furman and Converse College. He is also a faculty member at the Greenville County Museum of Art. Several of Miller’s exhibitions have shown in Greenville. - from a News and Media Relations press release dated 9/3/09.

Gallery Talk featuring Andy Gambrell (class of 2001)
Modern Static
October 19, 2009, 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Roe Art Building, Lecture Room

This presentation is open to all students and fulfills the Art Department CLP requirement.