Spark: A Celebration of Alumnae Artists from Holy Cross
Exhibition part of 40th anniversary celebration of coeducation on campus
March 14 - April 12, 2013
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross will present an exhibition of artwork by eight women artists who have graduated from the College and have professional careers in the visual arts. “Spark: A Celebration of Alumnae Artists from Holy Cross,” on view from March 14 – April 12, is part of the yearlong 40th anniversary celebration of coeducation at the College. An opening reception will be held from 5 – 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 14.
“The College is highlighting the professional and civic achievements of alumnae in a wide range of academic disciplines, including the arts, throughout the academic year,” says Roger Hankins, director of the Cantor Art Gallery, who is the curator of the show. “The exhibition focuses on women with established careers, as well as recent graduates with emerging careers.”
Margaret Lanzetta ’79, a New York artist whose time on the hill is closest to the arrival of women on campus in 1972, was featured most recently in a retrospective of work at the Cantor Art Gallery in 2010, titled “Margaret Lanzetta: Pet the Pretty Tiger, Works 1990 – 2010.” Lanzetta’s bold and color saturated paintings, inspired from an recent extended stay in Morocco, will be shown along with a series of translucent paper and fabric collages by North Carolina artist Ann Marie Kennedy ’89.
Kennedy describes these works as including “natural and domestic elements to create narratives about connections to the landscape.” Kennedy’s installations have been the focus of many one-person exhibitions since 2000 including “Memory House” at the Gregg Museum of Art and Design, at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, and “Forms of Shelter” at Artspace, Raleigh, N.C.
Lanzetta graduated cum laude with a B.A. in fine arts from Holy Cross in 1979 and received her M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts in N.Y. Lanzetta’s work was recently shown at La Cube Gallery, Rabat, Morocco and the French Institute Gallery, Fes, Morocco.
Kennedy received a studio art degree in 1989, continued her education at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and received her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. Kennedy teaches at the Wake Tech Community College in Raleigh, N.C.
Rachelle Beaudoin ’04 earned a B.A. in studio art from Holy Cross, and her M.F.A in digital media from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2007. She is also a graduate of the Brown University Sheridan Teaching Program in 2007. Beaudoin teaches digital media courses at Holy Cross and recently received a Fulbright grant to be an artist-in-residence at the quartier21, a center for contemporary art in Vienna, Austria. Beaudoin is currently in residence at the Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, Colorado. As a performance and video artist, she creates videos in her exploration of feminist iconography and “the body, as site for art, and activator, and as an object.” Beaudoin will display three video pieces from 2012.
Elizabeth Hamilton ’04, currently works and resides in Philadelphia, Penn. Hamilton received her M.F.A. from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia in 2011 and was a Center for Emerging Artists finalist in 2012. Her work utilizes large scale installations, altered ceramics and photography. Hamilton’s life-sized 1991 Oldsmobile, which she completed in 2011, was purchased by the West Collection in Oaks, Penn.
Teresa Buscemi ’07 received a B.A. in studio art from Holy Cross. Buscemi attended the Maryland Institute College of Art where she received her Post Baccalaureate Certificate and in 2011 she received her M.F.A. degree in photography at the University of New Mexico. Buscemi currently lives and works in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her work uses digital photography, electronic light sources and interactive installations to create shifting visual experiences for viewers.
Two “Spark” artists who graduated from Holy Cross in 2008 with studio art degrees, Amy Archambault and Justine Hill, also received M.F.A. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 2011.
Archambault was recently awarded a 2013 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship in Sculpture and is a studio supervisor and lecturer in the visual arts department of Holy Cross. Much of her work is installation-based and incorporates physical and kinesthetic performances. For the exhibition Archambault has created a large-scale installation, titled, “You will Survive” in which she has retrofitted a Subaru station wagon with all the equipment of a bomb shelter.
Hill resides in New York City and has worked as a studio assistant for artists Mickalene Thomas and Siri Berg. Hill’s abstract paintings and drawings were recently included in the exhibition “No More Rock-Stars” at Galerie Protégé in New York. Hill’s gestural abstractions allude to a hybrid of architectural and natural space.
The most recent graduate included in the exhibition is Haley Kattner Allen ’11. Allen, who lives and works in Dallas, Texas, will begin an M.F.A. program in photography at the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, N.Y., this fall. She is a founding member of the online exhibition site womanorial.com, a collective of woman artists who examine issues of femininity.
Several of the artists will present lectures about their experience as visual art practitioners throughout the exhibition. Dates and times will be announced as they become available.
Events
Thursday, March 14, 5 – 6:30 p.m., Opening reception in the Cantor Art Gallery, with opening remarks from Roger Hankins, director of the Cantor Art Gallery, and artists Amy Archambault ’08 and Teresa Buscemi ’07.
Friday, March 22, 12 – 1:30 p.m., Artists’ Panel Discussion: “Art After Holy Cross” in the Cantor Art Gallery. Artists Haley Kattner Allan ’11, Amy Archambault ’08, Justine Hill ’08 and Ann Marie Kennedy ’89 will discuss building careers in the visual arts. The discussion will be moderated by Cristi Rinklin, associate professor and chair of the visual arts department and Roger Hankins, director of the Cantor Art Gallery. (Light refreshments to follow the discussion, presented in conjunction with “Muses on the Mount,” a reunion celebration of 40 Years of Women in the Arts.)
