Six artists will be presenting Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist & Scholar lectures this fall in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s School of Art, Art History & Design. The series begins with painter Ana Maria Ortiz (Ana Marieta) on Wednesday, Sept. 1.
The School of Art, Art History & Design’s Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist & Scholar Lecture Series brings notable artists, scholars and designers to Nebraska each semester to enhance the education of students.
Each lecture takes place at 5:30 p.m. in Richards Hall Rm. 15. The lectures are free and open to the public.
Hailing from Barranquitas, Puerto Rico, and currently living in Houston, Ortiz started painting on old wood pieces with tempera paint as a little girl in her dad’s wood shop. Getting into the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez, she studied art and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in animal science.
Known by the local art scene for her humanoid creatures, Ortiz paints and draws animals with exaggerated anthropomorphic features, creating sympathy for her iconoclastic subjects in a society of stereotypes with sensibility and dark humor. These noble beasts, that seem to look at us in silence, represent more than a design, but a language that each must adapt to their own understanding.
Ortiz’s skills to create large-scale murals have been recognized in multiple cities for the subtle brush strokes and shading of hybrid creatures that bear her signature beaks and human-like eyes. Her street pieces reside around the world in London, Miami, Turin, Las Vegas, Hawaii and Kiev, among many others.
She has been exhibited in Mexico, London and at the prestigious Station Museum of Contemporary Art in Houston. She has also participated in many renowned art events such as Life is Beautiful Las Vegas, Pow Wow Hawaii, Unexpected in Arkansas, Wynwood Miami, Artscape in Sweden, SXSW in Austin, Desvelarte in Spain, Saturce es Ley and Yaucromatic in Puerto Rico and Art United Us in Kiev.
The remaining lectures in the series are:
• Sept. 22: David Lubin, film and art historian. He is the Charlotte C. Weber Professor of Art at Wake Forest University. His lecture is titled “Edward Hopper and Classic American Cinema.”
• Oct. 6: Odalis Valdivieso, painting. Born in Venezuela, Valdivieso lives and works in Miami. She has exhibited internationally and been a resident artist at the Brooklyn Public Library in New York and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami.
• Oct. 13: Raymond Meeks, photography. Meeks lives and works in the Hudson Valley (New York). He has been recognized for his books and pictures centered on memory and place, the way in which a landscape can shape an individual, and, in the abstract, how a place possesses you in its absence.
• Oct. 27: Mark Dion, conceptual artist. Dion’s work examines the ways in which dominant ideologies and public institutions shape our understanding of history, knowledge and the natural world. He is co-director of Mildred’s Lane, an innovative visual arts education and residency program in Beach Lake, Pennsylvania.
• Nov. 3: Brad Kahlhamer, painting. Kahlhamer lives and works in New York City. His work has been collected by institutions such as the Denver Art Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, among others.
Underwritten by the Hixson-Lied Endowment with additional support from other sources, the series enriches the culture of the state by providing a way for Nebraskans to interact with luminaries in the fields of art, art history and design. Each visiting artist or scholar spends one to three days on campus to meet with classes, participate in critiques and give demonstrations.
For more information on the series, contact the School of Art, Art History & Design at (402) 472-5522 or e-mail schoolaahd@unl.edu.