Current Exhibitions
113th Annual Exhibition – Vita Wild: Contemporary Wildlife Art
On view September 8 – December 15, 2024
With a primary focus on animals in the American wilderness and their intrinsic connection to the ecosystem, Vita Wild showcases nine contemporary artists whose works reflect cultural and environmental changes that expand the expression and definition of traditional wildlife art. Artists include Johnny Defeo, John Hitchcock, Frances Hynes, Adonna Khare, Mark Messersmith, Shelley Reed, Lauren Strohacker, Tom Uttech, and Travis Walker.
Vita Wild features paintings, prints, and sculptures offering diverse expressions of a category that has its roots in realism of subject, and faithful representation of habitat. Some artists, like Khare and Reed, carry on the tradition of realistic rendering, but shift the context. Messersmith’s environments are complex, fauvist explosions, anchored by lovely Renaissance predellas. Are they celebrations or the apocalypse? Hitchcock’s depictions of buffalos resemble the Kiowa Comanche beadwork of his mother’s ancestors and he invites the viewer to find small, hopeful moments amid chaos and complexity. Strohacker and Walker are interested in how our spaces are shared across species. Strohacker’s work invites us to reflect on the nonhumans that co-inhabit even the most humanly constructed places—such as cities, national borders, or university campuses—with us, while Walker’s images are imbued with a wry humor as his wolf roams the galleries of an art museum. Johnny Defeo’s paintings contain both a serenity and an undercurrent of foreboding and imminent threat. Uttech and Hynes conjure a sense of the sacred that binds the human and the wild.
The exhibition title is derived from the motto of Randolph College, Vita abundantior, which emphasizes an abundant life as the ultimate objective of a liberal arts education through exploration and encounters with the complicated spectrum of human creativity.
The 113th Annual Exhibition, Vita Wild: Contemporary Wildlife Art was made possible by the generous support of Mary Gray Shockey, ’69.
Image: Mark Messersmith, Dawn of Uncertainty, 2024, oil on canvas with carved wood elements.
Recent Work by Chris Cohen
On view September 8 – December 15, 2024
Chris Cohen was raised with a love for painting and drawing, a passion that led him to pursue a bachelor’s degree in studio art at Yale University. He began teaching at Randolph College as an adjunct in 2005 and joined the faculty in 2019 after completing his MFA at James Madison University.
Cohen was among a cohort of eight international artists who just completed the prestigious Tamarind Summer Workshop in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a four week intensive course in lithography, which takes place in July every year. Established in 1960, the Tamarind Institute is widely credited with revitalizing fine art lithography and remains America’s flagship lithography center. Cohen returns to Randolph with ideas to explore innovative techniques by experimenting with lithography plates, adapting them for use with the College’s etching presses, thereby expanding printmaking opportunities for Randolph students.
The Maier is committed to exhibiting Randolph College studio faculty work periodically, believing it is especially important for their students to see their practice. This is Cohen’s first solo exhibition at the Maier.
Recent Work by Chris Cohen was made possible by the generous support of Maier Museum of Art member Ellen Ross.
Image: Chris Cohen, Los Alamos Phoenix, 2024, color lithograph and monotype on paper.
Selections from the Permanent Collection
Ongoing
The Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College houses an outstanding collection of American art, chiefly paintings, works on paper, and photographs dating from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Explore this chronological exhibition of artwork from the permanent collection, including works by artists such as Milton Avery, Thomas Hart Benton, Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Edward Hopper, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe, and more. Explore works on view >>
Image: Edward Hopper, Mrs. Scott’s House, 1932, oil on canvas. Collection of the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College.
Upcoming Exhibitions >>
Past Exhibitions >>