2025 ODU Art Department Faculty Exhibition

Matt Brett 37°33’17”N 06/17/2021, 2021 Bio: Matt Brett is an artist making sculptures, installations, and photograms. His work draws inspiration from science and technology and borrows modernist forms to reflect on our relationship to the built world. He received an MFA in Studio Arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a BFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University. Brett has attended residencies at The Skowhegan school of Painting and Sculpture and Artists’ Cooperative Residency & Exhibition (ACRE). His work has been exhibited nationally in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Portland ME.

Artist Statement: I read once that technology is humanity’s interface with nature. The idea excited me because it hinted at how the built world is defined by material conditions as well as design. As the material world is reshaped by the pressures of human necessity and matter so are our imaginations shaped by our past and present environments. I am thinking about immersive digital space and the increasing prevalence of digital infrastructure. The modernist grid is borrowed in my work as a kind of absolute that I corrupt using analog sculpture materials like metal wire, epoxy clay, acrylic sheet, cyanotypes, and paint. Minimalist sculptures were often discrete, handless, alien, and about some ideal form.

What I am making is wobbly, thumby, and about a very terrestrial reality.

Website: www.mattkayhoebrett.com

Vittorio Colaizzi Space Picture, 2024 Bio: Vittorio Colaizzi is an art historian, painter, and curator. He has exhibited in Richmond, Norfolk, and the Midwest, and published on Robert Ryman, Joan Thorne, and Thornton Willis, among others.

Artist Statement: There is nothing special about triangles. I don’t paint shapes so much as direction and energy. Sometimes by not painting I leave room for direction and energy to take place.

Colors shape shapes and direction directs color.

Website: www.vittoriocolaizzi.com

Emily Culver Vestiges of the Decline (detail), 2022-2024 Bio: Existing primarily as sculpture, objects and jewelry, Culver’s work explores notions of intimacy, (non)functionality, gender and identity through corporeal qualities. Through these works she considers how interactions among objects are interpreted, translated, and mutated by negotiations with the body and anthropocentric tendencies. Culver actively exhibits her creative work nationally and internationally and is the recipient of various awards and residencies, including a 2017 Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship, 2022 residency at the James Castle House and a Summer Research Fellowship from ODU in 2023. She holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, a BFA from Tyler School of Art and is an Assistant Professor of Jewelry and Metalsmithing at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA.

Artist Statement: VESTIGES OF THE DECLINE speculate on a multitude of possibilities by cataloging catalysts that hover on the cusp of becoming. The amalgamation of machinery and organic anatomy in these hybrid creations question whether transitions from the mechanical to the natural induce an elevated state of vulnerability and failure. Considering these Pinocchio-esque aspirations, Culver’s works contemplate the implications of (d) evolution and what it can mean to undergo such transformative processes.

Website: www.emily-culver.com

Michael DiBari Jr. Demolition Derby (detail), 2023-2024 Bio: Michael DiBari Jr. is an editorial photographer, artist and educator living in Norfolk, Virginia. His work has been published in a variety of newspapers and magazines including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun and the Detroit Free Press. He is currently an adjunct professor at Old Dominion University. Previously, he was the Endowed Professor at the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University. DiBari holds a master’s degree in Visual Communications and a Ph.D. in Journalism, both from Ohio University. He lives in Norfolk, Virginia with his wife, two sons and two chickens.

Artist Statement: As a documentary photographer, I have photographed many different types of subjects and events. I enjoy the diversity and uniqueness of life. I am interested in the everyday and the mundane; the things we take for granted, and the things we see while we are on our way to someplace else. I look for simple ideas that can be translated into visual artifacts. One such idea is the demolition derby. An automobile event where the goal is simply to survive and be the last car moving. In his 1963 book, the Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, author Tom Wolfe, described the demolition derby as pure and simple, a form of gladiatorial combat for our times.” For the past several years, I have been exploring the idea of the demolition derby, as a cultural artifact that celebrates our infatuation with the automobile, as well as denigrates its existence.

Website: www.michaeldibari.com

Peter Eudenbach Black Box, 2024 Bio: Peter Eudenbach uses sculpture, video, photography, and curatorial projects to explore relationships between function and absurdity while challenging our expectations of the commonplace. A recipient of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship in 2007, Eudenbach’s work has been shown nationally and internationally at venues such as Exit Art in New York; the Kunstverein Grafschaft Bentheim in Neuenhaus, Germany; the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia; the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island, and at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, SC. Eudenbach’s work is in permanent collections including the Dollar Tree Corporation, the Barry Art Museum in Norfolk, VA and the Weatherspoon Museum in Greensboro, NC.

Artist Statement: A common strategy in my work is to remove the practical function of objects, freeing them to exist as poetry, with an emphasis on conceptual scale rather than physical scale. Recent examples include a shipping container curled into a spiral like a chambered nautilus and a QR code made into a wax seal. My focus has shifted recently to curatorial intervention as an examination of how value and meaning are created through context. This is also an exploration of how objects and spaces can be redefined by juxtaposition.

Website: www.petereudenbach.com

Kenneth FitzGerald Marvel Canyon, 2023 Bio: Kenneth FitzGerald is an educator, artist, designer, writer, and curator that lives and works in Chesapeake, Virginia. His artwork is various media are included in public and private collections primarily in New England and New York, but also internationally, and he has artist books in the Franklin Furnace/ Museum of Modern Art/Artists Books collection.

Currently, he is the Professor of Design at Old Dominion University.

Artist Statement: These works are meant as ‘paper paintings’ derived from repurposing found materials and imagery. They are also efforts in salvation: many components are, on their own, uninteresting or aesthetically dubious. Through placing them in contrast through layering, and in a new context, they may gain a new, more engaged life.

Though there are some visual plays on materials or art history, works are intended as pure visual indulgences. Process is purely formal and abstract: juxtaposing colors, patterns, and textures.

Website: www.ephemeralstates.com

Garth Fry Movable Barrier from Within, 2016—2024 Bio: Garth Fry (1979 b) is an artist based in San Francisco, California whose recent work focuses on the theoretical constructs surrounding sculpture. He graduated in 2016 with a Masters in Fine Art from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, California. In 2002, he earned his Bachelors of Fine Art in Graphic Design with a concentration in Printmaking from Longwood University in Farmville Virginia. Garth has contributed to the development of Artist & Scientist online journal. He is co-founder and active member of the ONE + ONE + TWO art collective. He has exhibited his work both nationally and internationally. In 2016 he participated in the Yellow House Residency in Wisconsin. Garth is also a proud recipient of California College of the Arts 2016 Dennis Leon and Christin Nelson Scholarship.

Website: www.instagram.com/garthfry

Daniel J. Goodwin Seafaring Vessel 01, 2024 Bio: I was born in Philadelphia PA in 1968. I have been making art as long as I can remember, but only got somewhat serious about it in high school. My original goal, as a young teenager, was to be a comic book artist. I thought all other forms of art were boring.

Over time, I became acquainted with Van Gogh, and the bohemian artist lifestyle. This vision of the artist as a person who lived and thought in a certain way eventually captured my imagination. I now look at art and craft in the same light.

Artist Statement: All art is functional in some sense. At times the function may be to give a dose of beauty; and at times the function may be to educate, or stimulate conversation- or maybe both. I once looked down on the idea of functional art. I somehow had the idea that functional art was not "real" art. Over time I began to see things differently, and now I tend to incorporate functional references into much of my work, even if it's not literally functional.

Peter Griscombe The White Column, 2024 Bio: I am visual artist with interests well beyond art. That said, I [comfortably] describe myself as an artistic geek, one never satisfied with being regulated to (art) studio creativity.

Educationally, I am a painter/printmaker, and historian, with interest in a variety of – although related – topics: architectural marketplaces, trade and colonialism, “race”, the built environment, with particular interest in the Caribbean and North American sphere. Despite all those, it is the visual arts and writing that (for lack of a better phrase) sustain me.

Artist Statement: I have always been fascinated in the activities within urban landscapes. For most of the past two decades, I have been working with/from such images in and around Kingston, Jamaica, various American cities, and the Kumasi Market in Ghana.

The colors, textures, and the myriad of patterns epitomize these, my interest, and have been translated into paintings and graphic works (drawings and prints). These exhibited work are examples from that series. As a contrast, when escape from the intense urban environments is sought, my attention moves further 'outward' into natural environments: A direct contrast to those built. As comfortable as I am working with various media, I am comfortable with these dual - at times multiple - genre.

Website: www.instagram.com/ pag_giscombe/

Mimi King The Buns are NOT Alright, 2023 Bio: Mimi King is a printmaker and collage artist living and working in Richmond, VA with her trusty studio cats, Captain Catnip and Clementine, and her husband, Jeffery Harper. She teaches relief and intaglio printmaking and 2D Design & Color Theory at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA.

Artist Statement: Mimi's work traces paths through the what-if landscapes of her imagination, using surrealism as a world-building device in narrative-driven prints.

Through the very serious medium of printmaking, she is rediscovering the sense of play left behind in the many late nights she spent in the company of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" crew and countless adventure fantasy novels.

Website: www.spacecatpress.com

Kyle Kogut Impalement (P&G), 2022 Bio: Kyle Kogut is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in drawing and sculpture. His work has been shown nationally at galleries such as Transmitter (NYC), FJORD (Philadelphia), the Wassaic Project, Current Space (Baltimore), SADE (Los Angeles), the Barry Arts Museum (Norfolk), and Dinner Gallery (NYC). Kogut has had solo and two person exhibitions at venues including the University of Maryland (College Park), Cherry (Richmond), SPRING/BREAK Art Show (NYC), Fried Fruit Gallery (Wilmington, NC) and Information Space (Philadelphia). Kogut was a member of FJORD gallery in Philadelphia from 2016-18. He has done residencies at The Anderson (VCU Richmond) and the Wassaic Project. Kogut graduated with a MFA from the Mount Royal School of Art multidisciplinary program at MICA in 2016. He currently resides in Norfolk, VA serving as a Lecturer of Drawing and Painting at Old Dominion University.

Artist Statement: My work uses the symbols of the Occult and Christianity, the visual culture of the Late Medieval and Northern Renaissance, and the ubiquitous iconography of brand logos to explore American myth and despair. Primarily working in drawing and sculpture, my works examine the disturbing effects of zealotry and perpetuation of (false) American ideals. Raised a devout Roman Catholic and the son of an auto mechanic, I critique America religiosity by exploring the satanic panic of the 80s and 90s and the weaponization of a nostalgia for a past that never existed. My work acts as an antithesis to the “In God We Trust” of nationalist propaganda through a lens of working class identity and media consumption. My work presents the contradictions embedded in the American psyche, confronting the failure of exceptionalism and intersection of the sacred and secular.

Website: www.kylekogut.com

Jake Lahah Attraction, 2024 Bio: Jake Lahah is a print, craft, and sculpture based artist whose research examines how the built-environment and resource extraction often reveal aspects of labor, globalization, and the human conditions. His work uses data, abstraction, and visual language to reveal political underbellies of colonial systems of global supply chains. He received his BFA from George Mason University (2017) and an MFA in Print from Tyler School of Art + Architecture (2024). Some of the cool places that Lahah has shown include: ICA Baltimore, Baltimore, MD; Candela Books and Gallery, Richmond, VA; Temple Contemporary, Philadelphia, PA; Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA; Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA; Attic 506, Chapel Hill, NC. He has been a resident artist at Studio Two Three, Richmond, VA and Zygote Press, Cleveland, OH. He’s currently working on launching a publications and writing based project called Foundation Press, exploring topics of the built environment through artist books and writing.

Artist Statement: I’m an artist that uses printmaking, craft, and installation practices to create works that explore the effects globalization has on the built and natural environment. I use abstraction, data aggregation, and the appropriation of public images to create narratives that rethink human engagement within these practices. I’m interested in the split-difference between perception and reality, and how collage, print, and material practices can act as a metaphor for the construction, deconstructing, learning, and unlearning of how we think about climate change around western idealization. My work attempts to flip the western-perception of land and resource use on its head in an attempt to highlight the ways we are complacent in global systems. Ultimately, my work is a critique in a hopefully endeavor to decolonize the western mind, creating new avenues for sustainable thinking around resources and labor.

Website: www.jakelahah.com

Ryan Lytle Indispensable, 2024 Bio: Ryan Lytle is a Hampton, VA based sculptor. He earned a B.A. in Studio Art from Christopher Newport University and his MFA from the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art. He currently is interested primarily in fiber processes including needle-felting and sewing because the medium has the ability to provide a nostalgic comfort reminiscent of his extensive childhood stuffed animal collection. He draws inspirations for his work from mythologies, existing animal archetypes, as well as nature documentaries and observation.

Artist Statement: Toolbox is a series of sculptures made from fiber and 3D printed materials that explore the relationship between technology, nature, and the human condition. This series highlights the challenges of labor in a society that is becoming more computerized and reliant on the gig economy. These forms combine the synthetic and the organic to express the duality of life and utility. They are intended to convey feelings of familiarity while also subverting assumptions about usefulness and worth. The tension between human interaction and automated manufacturing is what I hope to emphasize by fusing digital technology with human touch. In our society, where workers are often viewed as expendable resources, these hybrid creatures symbolize the fragility of both labor and life.

They serve as a reminder of the individuals behind the tools, whose contributions are frequently overlooked in favor of efficiency and profit. The use of fiber, a material that is both tactile and intimate, contrasts with the indiscriminate precision of 3D printing, emphasizing the emotional disconnect that can arise in a disposable economy. What does it mean to be a tool in a world that values speed over substance?

Website: www.ryanlytle.com

Tamryn McDermott Listen Closely and You May Hear Us…, 2024—2025 Bio: Tamryn McDermott is an artist and arts-based researcher teaching art education at Old Dominion University. She recently graduated with a PhD in Arts Administration, Education and Policy from The Ohio State University.

McDermott also holds an MFA in Fibers and Sculpture from the University of Missouri – Columbia, an MA in Art History and Arts Administration from Tyler School of Art + Architecture at Temple University, and a BFA in Painting and Sculpture, also from Tyler. McDermott has exhibited artwork at the Clayton Staples Gallery, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS; Hybrid Art Lab, Hopkins Hall Gallery, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; University of St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO; BlackRock Center for the Arts, Germantown, MD; and Crane Arts, Ice Box Project Space, Philadelphia, PA, among many others.

Artist Statement: Tamryn McDermott’s creative practice involves collective exhibitions, hand-made artist books and journals, arts-based research, and recontextualized, reimagined installations of her artwork. The dialogic processes of writing, revising, prompting, collecting, assembling, distilling, handwriting, and stitching is a sounding; a call and response (like the to-and-fro of a path or a video set in a palindrome loop). Following the path of my art education reveals the ongoing, emergent process of becoming artist/researcher/teacher (McDermott, 2021). As an artist, I integrate writing into my process as a practice of inquiry (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005); writing to arrive somewhere new. My sketchbooks are filled with writing and extracted quotes, set into new contexts on the pages. The visual journals I used as an art teacher throughout my K–12 teaching experience document my learning and emergence as an educator through an intermixing of text and visual explorations. These records are in flux; moving ideas, images, marks, letters, and words around on pages. The marks I make become more than marks. My marks are transformations that travel through me and are informed by my past, present, and my future. What happens when I settle on a mark and bring it into existence? What happens when I return to that mark? The marks I make exist in the then, now, and later; they are in a constant state of revision and becoming, open to movement and change.

Mark E. Miltz Imbalance, 2024 Bio: Mark Miltz, a native of Virginia, has been producing and selling paintings since 1974. He is a commercial artist and educator in addition to making fine art. Mark graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Old Dominion University in 1979, and in 2002 completed a Masters Degree (with distinction) from Kent Institute of Art and Design in Canterbury, England. Mark has taught a variety of studio disciplines for over the last 10 years, from workshops on figure drawing and painting to college classes in drawing, painting and design. He ran the Norfolk and Virginia Beach Figure Drawing Groups for several years, and has continued to meet with the Norfolk group since around 2003. As a fine artist, Mark has won dozens of awards in juried competitions both locally and across the country, and been published in “Spectrum 18”, an annual book of Fantastic, Fantasy and Science Fiction oriented art.

Artist Statement: As an artist, I am primarily inspired by the human figure. I am drawn to its unmatched power to evoke an emotional response. I am drawn to its rich tradition as the essential motif throughout the history of art. I am drawn to the risk. Yes, risk. The nude always straddles a fine and indistinct line between the obscene and the sublime. It's execution and style largely defines, in artistic terms, the cultures which have created (or not created) it; as our response to it hints at the nature of our own culture. I believe in content. The content can be narrative, symbolic, visual, or all of the above. Content is the element that defines representational painting, allowing for layers of meaning in addition to the purely visual experience provided by nonrepresentational work. Yet we still have the full use of the powerful expressive tools which can make such work so exciting.

Website: www.miltzart.com

Derek Munn Untitled 41, 2023 Bio: Derek Munn is an artist and educator living in Norfolk, VA. As an artist, Derek moves seamlessly between mediums with bodies of work in visual arts, performance, writing, and design. The common thread tying his artistic work together is the theme of asking existential questions involving creation and human experience. While his work doesn't offer any definitive answers, it serves as a catalyst for the audience to question their assumptions of existence and human nature. Memory, love, self-awareness, and natural patterns/cycles are recurring themes no matter the medium. Derek is a proud alum of Old Dominion University (BFA, 2006), The School of Visual Arts (MFA, 2012), and Copper Union (Certificate in Type Design, 2013). He is currently teaching graphic design courses at Old Dominion University, and is employed by The Push Comedy Theater for various roles on and off stage.

Artist Statement: The series “Wish You Were Here” is a collection of abstract photographs taken using film, plastic camera(s), and commercial darkroom processing. These photos serve as the only remaining record of these moments in life. Using multiple exposures, under/overexposure, and light leaks, a collage of an experience is recorded rather than an accurate snapshot suitable for record keeping. However, these photos were never taken with the intention of public display, and have not been edited in any way. As time passes, the details of memories fade. New experiences can re-frame and decontextualize old memories, changing them further. Some memories become more valuable over time while others become shells of their former impressions. These vacant impressions serve only as reminders of the memories of time passed. “Wish You Were Here” is the intersection of an inaccurate record meeting years of unreliable memories. Nothing seems real, but it’s all oddly familiar.

And you begin to miss a time/place to which you can never return, or never was at all.

Website: www.mistermunn.com

Richard Nickel Tomatoes, 2024 Bio: Born October 1st, 1969 in Rochester, NY. Richard Nickel received a Bachelor of Science in Art Education from State University College at Buffalo, New York in 1996. Then received a Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics 2000 at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. Richard Nickel is an active artist, educator and writer who has exhibited both nationally and internationally. He has been published in several books on contemporary ceramics and art journals. As a designer, Richard has created posters for Crafted Indie Arts and Crafts Market, a cover illustration for Studio Potter, ceramic awards for Skutt Kilns, illustrations for Alt Daily and animations for WHRO HealthBeat. As a ceramic sculptor, he has pieces in numerous private collections. Richard is also an active public artist, having designed and painted murals in Rochester, NY; Niagara Falls, NY; Norfolk, VA; Virginia Beach, VA; and Hampton, VA.

Artist Statement: Comedy & Tragedy—Often art is seen as an introverted, solitary experience involving serious thought and messages. Frequently overlooked are the examples of the lighter side of human existence – comedy. Art, like life, is a balance between comedy and tragedy. Shakespeare’s darkest plays were balanced with keen wit and humor.

My intent in much of my artwork is to reveal the purpose of humor in art and to show that in art comedy and tragedy are dependent on each other for a deeper understanding of the human condition.

Natalia Pilato It’s the Little Things, 2024 Ceramic, walnut Bio: Natalia Pilato holds a Ph.D. in Art Education from the Pennsylvania State University. She attended her program as a Bunton Waller Graduate Fellow with a focus on CommunityBased Art Education. She received her MEd. in Art Education as well as graduated Magna Cum Laud with a BFA in sculpture from PSU as a Schreyer Honors student, Her awards of recognition include: The Joy of Giving Something Award; Imagining America Scholarship; the Creative Achievement Award from the PSU; the American Association of University Women Outstanding Achievement Award. She was named higher educator of the year (2020/2021) from the Virginia Art Education Association. Pilato has organized 5 large-scale community-based mural projects as well as teaching college courses at PSU, Galen University in Belize, and the University of South Carolina. Currently, Dr. Pilato is an Assistant professor of Art Education and the Director of the Art Education Program at Old Dominion University.

Jing Qin I Like You for You to Be Still, 2023 Bio: Jing Qin is an artist originally from China. Her works often feature figurative images positioned in front of obscure interiors. She deliberately builds an antagonistic narrative by mixing elements from her fantasies with common objects from the more mundane world. Drawing inspiration from her experiences of alienation, Qin employs iconography, symbolism and a touch of absurdity to create a space that embraces the at-once ambiguous and fluid relationship between human and human, human and animal. Qin received a Philip Scholarship as an Artist-in Residence at University of Denver, the Artist in Residency at Vermont Studio Center and Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her work has been featured on publications as New American Paintings, Architecture Digest, and Friend of the Artist. Past exhibitions include solo exhibitions at Vicky Myhren Gallery, Denver. Tinney Contemporary Art Gallery, Nashville. Her recent exhibitions includes Made in VA Biennale at Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art.

Artist Statement: My work addresses psychological tension arising from the ambiguous and fluid relationship between human and human, human and animal. Drawing inspiration from personal experiences of alienation, I employ iconography, symbolism, and a touch of absurdity to create a space that hovers between familiarity and unfamiliarity. The characters are placed in a flatness described as a non-logical space where time stands still.

The intentional ambiguity of gender and skin tones contributes to a sense of uncanniness.

The figures engage in seemingly meaningless tasks, adopting ordinary poses, effectively blending the odd with the ordinary. The incorporation of tender moments of touch between figures and animals adds another layer to the narrative. Whether mirroring religious iconography or drawing from fashion and social media imagery, the figures' real intentions and identities remain camouflaged by fashionable outfits almost as their second layer of skin. The juxtaposition of figures and animals in duo postures becomes a metaphor for the internal-self encountering external strangeness. While initially appearing as intimate and longing, it also elicits an attitude towards the unknowable and unpredictable. The relationship oscillates between curiosity and hostility, inviting viewers to question and engage with the complex interplay of identity, familiarity, and the surreal.

Website: www.jing-qin.com

Jamie Robertson Untitled I (Swamp Study, Virginia), 2024 Bio: Jamie Robertson is a visual artist and educator who works in photography and video. Her creative practice investigates the landscape of the American South as a living archive of Black life, engaging the land physically and spiritually as a primary witness to Black resistance, solace, and power. Both private and public collections hold her work, which she has exhibited at galleries and museums across the United States.

She earned an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Houston and an MSc in Art Therapy from Florida State University. She is an Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University.

Artist Statement: My creative practice investigates the landscape of the American South as a living archive of Black life. Starting with my family’s relationship with the state of Texas and branching outward, I physically and spiritually engage the land as a primary witness to Black resistance, solace, and power. Through research, photography, and video, my work seeks to give flesh to the ghost/unseen and disregarded, by acknowledging its presence in the here and now. I source archival images from family albums and official archives, activating the past in the present through the convergence of found and original imagery. This marriage of image compounded with oral storytelling traditions opposes the hierarchy of “official” archives in favor of equality with the vernacular image. In doing so, my work distributes power to the knowledge systems outside of traditional ways of knowing.

Website: www.jamievrobertson.com

John Roth Soft Seas Ever Flow, 2023 Bio: Undergraduate degree- BS Art Education and Industrial Arts Education, Northern Michigan.

Marquette Master of Fine Arts, sculpture and painting, University of Wisconsin-Madison Before entering university, I worked in construction, on dairy farms, in retail management, in a lumber mill and as a maintenance mechanic in a foundry, furniture factory and chemical plant. I also taught K-6th grade art in a four-room schoolhouse in rural Michigan.

During graduate school I was employed as a technician in a contract industrial research laboratory where I fabricated laboratory apparatus, models, prototypes and performed destructive testing. I have shown my sculpture in New York, London, Ottawa ON, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles. I ‘ve been teaching sculpture for the past 29 years and currently hold the position of associate professor and Chair of the Art Department at Old Dominion University.

Artist Statement: My earlier concerns with polymorphic hybrid forms have progressed to include speculative environments to create context. These early forms originated from an interest in anthropomorphism and were partially informed by Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, Oryx and Crake. Her novel is a vivid depiction of genetic manipulation gone wrong and other calamities. Another novel that continues to resonate and inform my works is The Overstory by Richard Powers. This one depicts a broad cross section of humanity and their relationship with our biome. These new contexts originate from a longtime interest in the interactions of human activity on the landscape. In 2016, I spent September at the Gullkistan artist residency in Iceland. That location was a jumping off point for exploring and photographing the various natural features that in many cases serve as the backdrops for my latest diorama works.

With this format, I’m working on the nexus of the photograph/ model that has emerged from a variant of the film technique of rear screen projection. With these works I hope to invite viewers into a space for contemplation that provoke questions about simulation, display, perception and the human impact on our natural world.

Website: www.johnrgroth.com

Heather Sutherland Baby, You Are a DIAMOND, 2022 Bio: Heather Sutherland, also known as H$, is a glass artist with a MA /MFA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her work explores themes of failure, luxury, sexuality, and body image, confronting the struggles that reveal our vulnerabilities, strengths, and shared humanity. Most recently he has gained recognition through a award at the 10th Annual Glass International at the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, VA. Her notable traveling exhibition, Autonomous Zone, has been featured at Traver Gallery and BWA Gallery in Wrocław. She has participated in prestigious residencies, such as the Emerging Artist in Residence at Pilchuck Glass School and as a Glass Fellow at Wheaton Arts. Heather currently teaches as a part-time instructor at the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio, an instructor at the Governor's School for the Arts, and as an adjunct professor at Old Dominion University .

Artist Statement: Failure is beauty, and self-acceptance feels like quiet rebellion. Through the lens of glass, as both process and medium, I try to celebrate the authenticity of imperfection. My work reflects how resilient we can be, especially after everything the world puts us through—I think we come out of it like diamonds. The beauty of failure is a reminder of our shared humanity and the imperfections that make us who we are.

William Truran Space Achievements (Detail), 2023 Bio: Will Truran has been working as a commercial artist, concentrating on graphic design since 2010. During this time he ran his own clothing brand, worked in a small web agency as a UI/UX designer, developed large format displays for Johnson and Johnson, designed t-shirts for Harley-Davidson, aided P&G develop tech-based home advancements, as well as worked out of his own studio where he helped many small brands develop their aesthetic.

Most recently he accepted a role as Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Old Dominion University and continues to run his studio out of Norfolk Virginia.

Artist Statement: In a world shaped by rapid technological change, my work merges cinematic aesthetics with critical perspectives on society’s most pressing issues.

Through digital media, motion, and design, I seek to foster awareness and provoke conversations around environmental degradation, public health, and scientific milestones that shape our collective future. TrashFiles serves as a growing archive that visually documents the stark realities of consumerism. Designed as a digital toolkit, it empowers artists and creators to depict the ecological costs of our daily choices, urging viewers to confront the environmental impact of unchecked consumption. In You Are What You Eat: Now Go Live In It, I examine the intertwined effects of fast-food culture on personal health and our environment. This zine, constructed from collaged fast-food packaging, illuminates the waste and health consequences of convenience culture, challenging viewers to reconsider the cost of everyday indulgences. Space Achievements brings the excitement of scientific exploration back into the spotlight through animated posters styled with Futuristic User Interfaces reminiscent of science fiction. These visuals aim to reignite a collective wonder for space exploration, inspiring audiences to dream beyond Earth and celebrate humanity’s progress. Together, these works bridge digital art and activism, inviting audiences to reflect on their own impact on the world and rekindle their sense of curiosity and responsibility.

Website: www.willtruran.com

Domenica “Nikki” Webb Apron Mended, 2012—2024 Bio: Born and raised in Pittsburgh PA. Attended Old Dominion University and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a major in drawing and minor in art history.

Earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Visual Studies from the joint program of Norfolk State University and Old Dominion University. Teaching experience of twenty-one years at Tidewater Community College and at Old Dominion University as an Adjunct Assistant Professor. Courses taught include drawing, design, color, letterpress and the book as an art form.

Artist Statement: My work investigates heritage and memory with an emphasis on women’s work using family clothing and reliquary. These works produced ghostlike images suggesting a presence through absence. Always present is an emphasis on process and craftsmanship.