Artist Chip Thomas will present next Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist Lecture April 6
calendar icon23 Mar 2022
Lincoln, Neb.—Interdisciplinary artist Chip Thomas will present the next Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist Lecture on Wednesday, April 6.
The lecture is at 5:30 p.m. in Richards Hall Rm. 15. It is free and open to the public. It is also accessible via Zoom at https://unl.zoom.us/j/93570308270.
Thomas, aka “jetsonorama,” is a photographer, public artist and physician, who has been working in a small clinic on the Navajo Nation since 1987. There, he coordinates the Painted Desert Project, which he describes as a community-building dialog that manifests as a constellation of murals painted by artists from the Navajo Nation, as well as from around the world.
Thomas’ own public artwork consists of enlarged black and white photographs pasted onto structures along the roadside, primarily on the Navajo Nation. His motivation is to reflect back to the community the love they’ve shared with him over the years.
Thomas was a 2018 Kindle Project gift recipient. In 2020, he was one of a handful of artists chosen by the United Nations to recognize the 75th anniversary of the UN’s founding. Selected artists are to generate work that contributes to the envisioning and shaping of a more resilient and sustainable future. The UN writes, “. . . Right now we are facing the greatest health challenge to the human race in a century. Covid-19 has revealed that a virus can affect not only our physical health, but also our ability to cope with the psychological impact in its wake.” Thomas spent 2021 working collaboratively to create art that is a community-based response to the pandemic.
The remaining lecture in the series is:
• April 13: David Lubin, art history. Film and art historian Lubin will present a lecture titled “Edward Hopper and Classic American Cinema.” He is the Charlotte C. Weber Professor of Art at Wake Forest University.
Underwritten by the Hixson-Lied Endowment with additional support from other sources, the series enriches the culture of the state by providing a way for Nebraskans to interact with luminaries in the fields of art, art history and design. Each visiting artist or scholar spends one to three days on campus to meet with classes, participate in critiques and give demonstrations.
For more information on the series, contact the School of Art, Art History & Design at (402) 472-5522 or e-mail schoolaahd@unl.edu.