Art and Art History Department

In this recurring feature in The Wesleyan Connection, we highlight some of the latest news stories about Wesleyan and our alumni. Recent Wesleyan News Wall Street International Magazine: "Tula Telfair: Reverie" Professor of Art Tula Telfair's new exhibition of landscape paintings, "Reverie," is presented Feb. 7 through March 30 at the Forum Gallery in New York. According to the article, "In the fourteen paintings that comprise 'Reverie,' she explores the inner reaches of her dreams and memories, taking us to places she has been or believes in so fully that she is able to portray and take the viewer to the…

Artwork by Artist-in-Residence Keiji Shinohara is on display at the Deerfield Academy's von Auersperg Gallery in Deerfield, Mass., through Oct. 29. The exhibit, titled Whispers of the Infinite, features multiple woodcuts and monotypes that Shinohara created while participating in residencies in Denmark over the past two summers. Shinohara was born and raised in Osaka, Japan. After 10 years as an apprentice to the renowned Keiichiro Uesugi in Kyoto, he became a Master Printmaker and moved to the U.S. Shinohara's natural abstractions are printed on rice paper with water-based inks from woodblocks in the Ukiyo-e style–the traditional Japanese printmaking method dating to 600 CE.…

Three Wesleyan faculty were honored with the Wesleyan Prize for Excellence in Research on Sept. 4. The inaugural prize, presented by Joyce Jacobsen, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, is similar to the Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching, but is presented to members of the faculty who demonstrate the highest standards of excellence in their research, scholarship, and contributions to their field. Each recipient received a plaque and citation as well as research funds for their award. Nominations by faculty colleagues for this new prize will be accepted through the end of April each spring, and the…

Ian Boyden ’95 received an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship of $12,500, one of only 25 such grants for 2019, to support the new translation of poetry and prose from 17 countries into English. Boyden’s fellowship will support his work translating from the poetry collection Minority, written in Chinese by Tibetan poet Tsering Woeser, considered one of China’s most respected living Tibetan writers. In 2013, John Kerry of the U.S. State Department honored Woeser with an International Women of Courage Award. In 2010, the International Women's Media Foundation had given her a Courage in Journalism Award. Boyden, an artist, writer, curator, and…

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The scent of ancient perfumes evaporated eons ago, but scientists are able to reconstruct their ingredients by analysis of the residues left on their containers. Up until now, however, such studies have largely been isolated in the scientific literature, disconnected from the textual and archaeological data that place these perfumes back into the hands of their ancient users. Kate Birney, assistant professor of classical studies, archaeology, and art history, is hoping to change that as co-architect of the OpenARCHEM project, which seeks to assemble the largest set of organic residue samples ever collected from archaeological artifacts around the Mediterranean. Built…

Casey Herrick ’16, a Houston-based artist and designer, was named a Henry Luce Scholar for 2018. One of 18 scholars selected from among 162 candidates, Herrick will begin with an orientation in New York starting in June, before the cohort embarks for Asia. The Henry Luce Foundation was established in 1936 by Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time Inc., to honor his parents, who were missionary educators in China. The Luce Scholars Program was launched in 1974 to “enhance the understanding of Asia among potential leaders in American society.” Upon his graduation from Wesleyan, Herrick, who majored in studio art…

"Pattern recognition was a constant in my explorations at Wesleyan—and what I focused on afterwards," says Benjamin Fels ’06, explaining the unity behind a seeming diversity of interests. The Bill and Melinda Gates Organization is interested, also, in what Fels finds intriguing. The company Fels co-founded, macro-eyes, is one of 20 that the foundation selected to be a Grand Challenges Explorations winner. The project that macro-eyes proposed seeks to use their own breed of statistical machine learning, trained on supply chain and immunization data at health facilities in Tanzania. The goal is to maximize the number of children who get vaccinated and minimize vaccine…

In a program jointly sponsored by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and The Amistad Center for Art & Culture, artist Glenn Ligon ’82 joined Dean and Professor of Art History at Northwestern University Huey Copeland for a discussion on Sept. 13 at the Atheneum in Hartford. The two, who noted their longstanding friendship as they began their onstage discussion, explored Ligon’s creative practices and Copeland’s research on the ways African American artists have addressed race in the history of American art. Prior to the conversation, attendees were invited to view the Atheneum's permanent installation of post-2000 contemporary art in…

Visual artist and author Miles Hyman ’85 has been chosen for the prestigious title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French Ministry of Culture. The award will be bestowed during a ceremony on a future date to be determined. Hyman studied drawing and printmaking with Professor of Art David Schorr at Wesleyan and went on to study at the Paris Ecole des Beaux-arts. Hyman’s award-winning drawings and paintings have appeared in books, magazines and galleries in the United States and Europe, with clients that include the New Yorker, the…

Amid rising student interest, Wesleyan has announced a new interdisciplinary minor in Integrated Design, Engineering, and Applied Sciences (IDEAS), beginning in 2017-18. It will be hosted within the College of Integrative Sciences (CIS). The IDEAS minor will introduce foundational skills in engineering and design, and bring together existing arts, design, and applied science courses to create a more formal structure to guide students interested in these fields. According to Professor of Physics Francis Starr, a co-proposer of the minor and director of the CIS, “The new minor plays into Wesleyan’s unique capabilities and dovetails with Wesleyan’s commitment to prepare students…

The Ancient Romans relied on a curious object to tell time: a sundial in the shape of an Italian ham. National Geographic has featured the work of Wesleyan's Christopher Parslow to re-create this ancient "pork clock" through 3-D printing, which is helping researchers to better understand how it was used and what information it conveyed. "It does represent a knowledge of how the sun works, and it can be used to tell time,” said Parslow, professor and chair of Classical studies, professor of archaeology, professor of art history. The small, portable prosciutto sundial —the "pocket watch of its day," according to the article—was…

Wesleyan in the News

Shinohara’s Woodcuts, Monotypes on Exhibit

Yohe, Siry, Sultan Awarded Wesleyan Prize for Excellence in Research

Boyden ’95 Awarded NEA Fellowship for Poetry Translations

Art Studio Majors Exhibit Senior Theses in Zilkha Gallery

Birney Receives Mellon Fellowship to Pursue Role of Scents in Antiquity

Houston-Based Artist Herrick ’16 Is Named Luce Scholar

Fels ’06 Wins Gates Grand Challenges Explorations with macro-eyes Health Care Initiative

Ligon ’82 Discusses Creative Practices, Race, at Wadsworth Atheneum

Hyman ’85 to be Awarded French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres

New Minor in Design, Engineering and Applied Sciences Announced

Faculty Re-Create Ancient Roman “Pork Clock” at Wesleyan