Online fall Fine Arts lecture series

This fall, Massachusetts College of Art & Design’s Fine Arts lecture series is fully virtual and open to the public. Join us on November 18 and December 2 for talks by Paula Wilson and Sangram Majumdar, followed by Q&A sessions with the visiting artists.

Paula Wilson in conversation with MassArt Faculty Fred Liang
Wednesday, November 18, 12pm via Zoom
Paula Wilson is an multimedia artist whose densely layered, colorful, and often monumental works utilize a variety of painting, collage, filmic, installation, and print techniques. As a black biracial woman born in Chicago, IL and living in the American desert, Wilson’s multifaceted work resists a singular viewpoint. Her layering of color, image, pattern, and materials acts as a visual metaphor for the complex stratum of histories and cultures, both real and imagined that inform her work. 

Wilson was born in Chicago, Illinois, and received an MFA from Columbia University in New York and a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis. Wilson’s artworks are in the collections of The Studio Museum in Harlem, Yale University, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, The Rubell Family Collection, The New York Public Library, and The Fabric Workshop & Museum. She has been featured in publications such as Hyperallergic, Artforum, The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, and The New Yorker.  She is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Artist Grant, Bob and Happy Doran Fellowship at Yale University, and Princeton University’s Hodder Grant. Wilson is based in Carrizozo, New Mexico where she is co-founder of the artist organizations MoMAZoZo and the Carrizozo Artist in Residency (AIR). 

Sangram Majumdar
Wednesday, December 2, 12pm via Zoom
Born in Kolkata, India, Majumdar has an MFA from Indiana University and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Recent solo exhibition venues include Geary Contemporary, NY; Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, NY; Barbara Davis Gallery, TX and Asia Society Texas Center, TX. Recent selected group exhibition venues include Shoshana Wayne Gallery, LA; The Landing Gallery, LA; Freight & Volume, NY; James Cohan Gallery, NY; Gallery Zürcher, NY and Come Together: Surviving Sandy, curated by Phong Bui, Brooklyn, NY. Awards include a NYFA Grant in Painting, Purchase Award from the 2010 Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters, NY, a MacDowell Fellowship, a residency at Yaddo, the 2009-10 Marie Walsh Sharpe Studio Space Program Grant, a MICA Trustees Award for Excellence in Teaching, and two Maryland State Art Council Individual Grants in Painting. His work has been reviewed in Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, among others. He has also lectured on his work at numerous institutions including Columbia University, RISD, CCA, Cranbrook School of Art, Pratt, PAFA, SUNY-Purchase, Princeton University, and the New York Studio School. In 2019 he was inducted into the National Academy of Design. He is a Professor of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Majumdar lives and works in Baltimore, MD.

All fall 2020 MassArt visiting artist lectures are held via Zoom, and are free and open to the public.

Massachusetts College of Art & Design’s Fine Arts Lecture series is presented by the departments of 2D and 3D Fine Arts, in conjunction with the MassArt Graduate Programs. In addition to delivering public lectures, visiting artists meet with MassArt graduate students for individual studio visits and feedback sessions.

Past visiting artists and scholars include Laylah Ali, Carol Diehl, Mark Dion, Angela Dufresne, Jarrett Earnest, Ariel Basson Freiberg, Josephine Halvorson, Anne Harris, Andrea Heimer, Vera Iliatova, Lavaughn Jenkins, Byron Kim, Aaron McIntosh, Edgar Serrano, Claire Sherman, Sumakshi Singh, Leslie Smith III, and Mimi Smith.

MassArt’s 2D Fine Arts and 3D Fine Arts MFA programs provide students with a deep dive into their chosen medium, while offering the opportunity for cross-pollination with other disciplines. Our full-time, two-year MFA programs encourage students to experiment and explore, while refining the technical and conceptual strategies in their work.