Maine College of Art & Design today announced the roster of the 2023 MFA Visiting Artist Summer Lecture Series. Each year, first and second-year students in the Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art (MFA) program at Maine College of Art & Design come to the College campus in the heart of the Arts District in Portland for an eight-week summer intensive. These summer trimesters provide candidates with an opportunity to bond as an artistic cohort while holding interdisciplinary conversations that challenge candidates and inform their personal practice.
Alicia Eggert, This Present Moment, neon, custom controller, steel, 144" x 180" x 48", 2019
"As the challenges of the 21st century unfold, art remains a powerful tool to build an engaged culture of creativity,” says Tracey Cockrell, Summer MFA Chairperson and Adjunct Associate Professor. “Our Summer Visiting Artist Lecture Series brings cultural 'evolutionaries' into dialogue with our students and our community."
A critical piece of what inspires candidates’ creativity in the two months of the MFA Summer Intensive–which began June 12 and runs through August 4, 2023–is the intimate exchange between emerging artists and the Visiting Artists who come to campus each week for lectures, critiques, and studio visits.
The College is pleased to announce that for the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Visiting Artist lectures are once again open to the public. Lectures take place Mondays and Wednesdays at 5:30pm in Osher Hall in the College’s historic Porteous Building. This year’s roster of Visiting Artists includes:
- Monday, June 19: Sebastian Black, American Postwar & Contemporary painter;
- Wednesday, June 21: Leon Benn, Portland-based artist;
- Monday, June 26: Chiara No, research-centric artist and educator;
- Wednesday, June 28: Jaime DeSimone, artist and Chief Curator at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine;
- Monday, July 3: Jason Lazarus, multimedia artist and Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at the University of South Florida;
- Monday, July 10: Lourdes Correa Carlo, sculptor and art historian;
- Wednesday, July 12: Tra Bouscaren, post-disciplinary artist focused on spectacle at the crossroads of waste culture and the surveillance state;
- Monday, July 17: Gina Siepel, interdisciplinary artist, designer, and woodworker;
- Wednesday, July 19: Patricia Brace, feminist performance artist;
- Monday, July 24: Monique Long, independent curator and writer;
- Wednesday, July 26: Alicia Eggert, installation artist;
- Monday, July 31: Andrew Roberts, research-based artist specializing in multimedia narrative and speculative fiction; and,
- Wednesday, August 2: Elana Adler, multidisciplinary artist and co-founder of contemporary art space Adler & Floyd located in Chicago, IL.
“Art is not a singular focus; it is a field and a conversation," says Administrative Director of Graduate Programs Rachel Katz MFA ’00. "Part of what sets our program apart is that we offer an interdisciplinary approach that gives our artists the freedom and flexibility to follow their work where it needs to go and make something they never expected to create along the way."
For more information about the 2023 MFA Visiting Artist Summer Lecture Series, click here.
ABOUT MAINE COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN
Maine College of Art & Design has been activating students of all pursuits to make art, make an impact, and inspire change since its founding as Portland School of Art in 1882. Located in Portland's thriving Arts District, students have access to state-of-the-art facilities, 24-hour-a-day studios, a 10:1 student-to-faculty ratio, and a community-based Artists at Work program—making Maine College of Art & Design the right-sized school in the right-sized city for every student who wants to make their mark and be seen. We offer BFA Majors and Minors, Graduate Programs, Continuing Studies, and Pre-College, and includes the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies and the Institute for Contemporary Art. Follow us at @mecaart.