Ceramic Artist Next in USU Visiting Artist Program

Massachusetts ceramic artist Chris Gustin will be on the Utah State University campus April 1-3 as part of the Department of Art Visiting Artist Program. He will present a public lecture Wednesday, April 1, at 7 p.m. in the Eccles Conference Center (room 216) on campus. The artist will show images and speak about his artwork.

USU art department programs are a part of the Caine School of the Arts, based in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

 

As well as the public lecture, Gustin will present a two-day workshop in the ceramics area of the Department of Art (FAV 121) (approximately 1200 E. 700 North). This will be held Thursday and Friday, April 2-3, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Participants will be able to observe the artist at work. Gustin will also meet with advanced ceramics students to discuss their artwork. All events are free and open to the public.

 

Gustin is a studio artist and emeritus professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. He received his bachelor’s of fine art from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1975, and his master’s of fine art from Alfred University in 1977. Using the traditions of the vessel as a means of abstraction, Gustin uses scale and gesture to explore the dynamic of the human form.

 

John Neely, head of USU’s ceramics program, described the qualities of Gustin’s work.

 

“Potters everywhere speak of their work in figurative terms — the foot of a pot, for example, or the belly, the shoulder or the neck — but Gustin takes this to another level,” Neely said. “He suggests the curves and folds of flesh, not in any literal fashion but in the way his skin-like surfaces envelope and contain underlying structures.”

 

Gustin’s work is published extensively, and is represented in numerous public and private collections around the world. With more than 40 solo exhibitions, Gustin has exhibited, lectured and taught workshops in the United States, Caribbean, Europe, Middle East and Asia. He has received two National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowships and two Massachusetts Crafts Fellowships, the most recent in 2005.

 

USU’s Visiting Artist Program presents visits by nationally known artists, art critics/writers and art historians. Lectures, workshops, group discussions and exhibitions by the artists are free and open to the public. The guests are selected for their national and international reputations, the ways in which their art reflects diversity with respect to the media used and their varied backgrounds.

 

The Visiting Artist Program is funded by a grant from the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Utah Humanities Council, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Utah Arts Council, with funding from the State of Utah, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

Interactive artist Golan Levin from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh is the final guest in this year’s Visiting Artist Program (April 8).

 

For more information about the Visiting Artist Program at USU, contact program director Marilyn Krannich, 435-797-7373.

 

 

Source: Art Department
Contact: Marilyn Krannich, (435) 797-7373