The UCCS Visiting Artists & Critics Series features a lineup of presentations by artists and critics of national and international significance. The program’s goal is to foster understanding and appreciation of contemporary art through dialogue and critical conversations. Each VACS lecture takes place in the Chapman Foundation Recital Hall, next door to the Marie Walsh Sharpe Gallery in the Ent Center for the Arts. High-quality video recordings of each lecture are made public and archived on GOCA’s digital content platform within two weeks of each event (GOCAdigital.org).

Over the past decade, the series co-produced by the UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art and UCCS Visual Art & Art History programs has invited artists and scholars to the UCCS campus to present public lectures and meet with undergraduate students in classes and workshop settings.

The series is generously supported by the CU President’s Fund for the Humanities, Colorado Creative Industries, UCCS Student Government Association, and the Bee Vradenburg Foundation.

2025-2026 EVENTS

Thursday, February 12, 2026, 6 - 7 p.m.

Chapman Recital Hall, Ent Center for the Arts

The first VACS of 2026 is with exhibiting artist and researcher, Nina Elder! Elder creates projects that reveal humanity’s dependence on, and interruption of, the natural world. With a focus on changing cultures and ecologies, Nina advocates for collaboration, fostering relationships between institutions, artists, scientists and diverse communities. Because Nina is devoted to rural communities and often overlooked places, she regularly works outside of urban cultural centers and the commercial art world. Nina lectures as a visiting artist/scholar at universities, develops publicly engaged programs, and consults with organizations that seek to grow through interdisciplinary programming. 

Nina’s artwork is widely exhibited and has been featured in Art in America, VICE Magazine, and on PBS. Her research has been supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Rauschenberg Foundation award for Arts & Activism, the Pollock Krasner Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation. She has recently held positions as an Art + Environment Research Fellow at the Nevada Museum of Art, a Polar Lab Research Fellow at the Anchorage Museum, and a Researcher in Residence in the Art and Ecology Program at the University of New Mexico. She migrates between rural Colorado and site-specific projects.

Thursday, October 23rd, 2025, 6 - 7 p.m.

Chapman Recital Hall, Ent Center for the Arts

Karla García is the 2025 Female Emerging Artists Residency Series (F.E.A.R.S.) artist. This residency series is an experimental program that invites artists early in their professional careers to UCCS to participate in a residency, solo-exhibition, and academic classes. F.E.A.R.S. is now a collaborative initiative between the UCCS Visual Arts Department (VAPA) and GOCA.

Karla García (1977,  Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico) is a Texas-based artist originally from Mexico. Her ceramic sculptural installations are rooted in her Mexican heritage and informed by personal and cultural memory, historical research, and philosophy. She explores the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative effects of the environment on the land we share.

García earned an MFA in Ceramics and a Certificate in Museum Education from the University of North Texas. She is a Sandhills Institute Artist Fellow in Nebraska and has exhibited in museums such as the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Old Jail Art Center in Texas, and a bi-national exhibition at the Chamizal National Memorial and the Museum of Archeology and History of El Chamizal on both sides of the Texas/Mexico border. Her recent projects include Grass Flower, a ceramic installation at Lora Reynolds Gallery in Austin, TX, and a residency at the University of Colorado Springs.