All gallery exhibitions, lectures and receptions are free and open to the public. View gallery hours or call (989) 964-2291. The University Art Gallery is located in the Arbury Fine Arts Center on the campus of Saginaw Valley State University.

September  28 - October 22, 2026
Lecture: October 22, 2026, 3 p.m.
Reception: October 22, 2026, 4 - 6 p.m.

Rabbit Weavings: Complex Threads of Making

The industrial jacquard weavings in this exhibition are based on paintings from my Through the Veil and Holidays Unfolding series. Through the process of this work, making sketches in Photoshop and creating patterns printed on silk that became sub-straights for paintings, I became interested in ways that digital technology translates images and gives multiple options for output and adding new meaning.

Each painting in my recent Through the Veil series begins with a rendering from a closely observed fabric with wrinkles and folds. They recapitulate the compositional structure of a painting/drawing by artists from the past and present or my Photoshop collage. The fabric in these paintings acts as a limen or threshold that places the viewer into multiple, often conflicting, layers of space and meaning. In the series the Rabbit or environment may be stretched or manipulated through Photoshop to create a sense of instability, heightened emotion, or a digital sifting. The paintings good-humoredly deconstruct imagery from pop, outsider, and high culture to create new “spaces” of meaning. The shape-shifting Rabbit is positioned in front of or behind; it looks into, out, around or between images and spaces. Rabbit frequently appears in the series with his sidekick, Kitty Boy, who is based on my buff tabby, Bingley. The paintings use dark humor, visual puns, symbols and metaphors, moments of silence, art historical allusions, cultural collisions, and spiritual conundrums to play with style and pictorial/formal construction.

Holidays Unfolding investigates the trope of drapery and the idea of Still Life, not as Nature Morte (or “dead nature”) but as Nature Morte Vivante (vivante implying “fast moving action and a certainly lively quality”). The work also examines contradictory feelings that accompany loss, nostalgia, or ubi sunt to become a meditation on mortality and life’s transience. The series’ surreal imagery also comments on pressing issues in American politics, culture, values, and mores. I explore new possibilities between a complex interface of painting, textiles, and digital technology while producing an end product that maintains the nuance and richness of slow work wrought by hand.

The complex threads of the industrial jacquard weavings add another visual and conceptual layer to process and product. Translating images, slowly painted by hand, into a potentially mass-produced product that simulates slow work wrought by hand is amusing, mesmerizing, troubling, and a symptom of our times. As artists we engage in  a reciprocal fabric of making. We tie and re-tie “strings” that simultaneously pull on the past, present, and future, on the artist and the viewer.

Shown: Woodfired plate background, Ben Quinno '20

October 7 – November 8, 2024
Reception: October 31^st, 4 – 6 p.m.

The ceramics program at SVSU within the Department of Art has graduated many artists that have continued the practice of working with clay as their main artistic medium. For this homecoming season BFA majors concentrating in Ceramics have been invited back to revisit their roots, reconnect, and foster new clay connections. As the field has changed, they have grown and found additional mentor-ships outside of the university. They’ve come home to share what they’ve learned. This exhibition will showcase how they’ve grown and developed their working practices since earning their degrees.

Featured artists include: Kassie Smith '13, Robert Rokita '96, Emily Davis '23, Billy Haboush '18, Adam Stuart '15, Penny Knapp '02, Sean Gallagher '97, Kari Young '08, Becca Watz '02, and Alyssa Cozad '16, Corrin Grooms '18.

Shown: 21st Annual winners with department chair Blake Johnson in Arbury's lobby

January 5 – January 31, 2024
Reception and Awards: January 22, 2024, 4 – 6 p.m.

This exhibition includes the work of SVSU art major and minor students from all academic levels created during the past year and includes multiple disciplines taught within the art curriculum including graphic design, photography, printmaking, painting, drawing, ceramics, sculpture and three-dimensional design. Exceptional work is recognized following a brief awards presentation that occurs during the reception.

21st Annual Juried Art Student Exhibition Awards

🏆 $200 Best in Show

• Brandon Gaudreau — Blue Jacket Guy.jpeg, Digital Color Print

🥈 $100 Second Place

• Quinn Navilynn — Leather Bag, Stoneware, mixed media

🥉 $75 Third Place (Tie)

• Beth Einowski — Me vs. Me, Linocut
• Kaylyn Inda — Surface Level Problems, Oil on Canvas

 $25 Juror’s Choice Awards

• David Andres

Jodi II

Medium: Oil on Canvas

• Beth Einowski

Me VS. Me

Medium: Linocut

• Katelyn Engels

Body Damage

Medium: Gelatin Silver Print

• Alex Lorenz

Silent Singer Swans

Transience

Medium: Digital Photos

• Quinn Navilynn

Drink the Koolaid

Medium: Stoneware

• Tanner Smith

Wood Structure

Medium: Wood