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Wednesday, January 24, 2024, 6 - 7 p.m.

Chapman Auditorium, Ent Center for the Arts

Sara-Jayne Parsons is the Director and Curator of the Art Galleries at TCU (Texas Christian University) in Fort Worth, Texas. She promotes professional development of students and local artists through programming in Moudy Gallery and drives the international curatorial vision of TCU’s satellite space, Fort Worth Contemporary Arts. Her curatorial practice is informed by working in close collaboration with artists to produce new art works through commissions, exhibitions and artist residencies. Recent projects include: Yours, in Extraction: Robyn Woolston (2022); Let My Body Eat The Sun: Christie Blizard (2021); and, Caribbean Fantasia: Raphael Barontini (2020).

Previously the Exhibitions Curator at the Bluecoat in Liverpool, UK, Parsons produced a diverse, contemporary exhibition programme from 2006-14. She worked directly with many artists to develop exhibitions and produce new and often site-specific works, including Mark Anstee, Ayman Baalbaki, Jyll Bradley, Gina Czarnecki, Hew Locke, Nicki McCubbing, Janek Schaefer and Emily Speed. During her time in Liverpool, she was also a collaborative member of several curatorial teams working across the city including the Liverpool Biennial; LOOK, Liverpool's biennial international photography festival; and the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival.

Parsons’ critical writing has been published in contemporary art magazines including Exposure, Source, and Art Monthly Australia. She has also published essays in various exhibition catalogues: 150 Years / 150 Artists (2023); Abstract Utility: Buster Graybill (2019); Performing Likeness (2015); Soft Estate: Edward Chell (2013); 3am: wonder, paranoia and the restless night (2013); I Exist (in some way) (2013); Is Britain Great? 3: The Caravan Gallery (2011); and Jyll Bradley: Airports for the lights, shadows and particles, (2011).

Parsons received her PhD from the University of Plymouth UK in 2023. Her thesis is entitled “An accumulation of Care. Affect in the role of the contemporary curator.”

Thursday, September 28, 2023, 6pm

Chapman Auditorium, Ent Center for the Arts

Martha Russo (b. 1962, Milford, Connecticut) earned her Bachelor of Arts in developmental biology and psychology from Princeton University in 1985. In 1984, while vying for a spot on the United States Olympic Field Hockey Team, she suffered a career-ending injury. After recovering from surgery, Russo was attracted to the physical nature of sculpture and ceramics. She began studying studio arts in Florence, Italy in 1983 and continued studying ceramics at Princeton University with Toshiko Takaezu. In 1996, she earned her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Russo exhibits her sculptures and installations nationally at venues such as the Allan Stone Gallery in New York City, Denver Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver, Miami Project, and The Santa Fe Art Institute. Her work was the focus of a 25-year survey at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in 2016. Russo’s work is in many private and public collections including the Denver Art Museum. Another facet to her studio practice is through the socially and politically-based art collective, Artnauts, Russo has shown her 2-dimensional works in 280 exhibitions in 22 countries. She has been the collective coordinator for the last 12 years.

In addition to her studio practice, Russo is a lecturer at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Art and Art History Department and the College of Engineering. Prior to that appointment, she taught at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design in Denver for 18 years. She lives in the mountains northwest of Boulder, Colorado with her husband, Joe Ryan and they have a daughter, Odelia, and a son, Henry.