Arts Speaker Series: Selva Aparicio, Sculpture and Dimensional Studies Randall Chair
Selva Aparicio: Theodore International Randall Chair in Sculpture Dimensional Studies. Selva Aparicio is an interdisciplinary artist exploring ideas of memory, intimacy, and the temporality of life through installations that celebrate the cyclicity of the natural world. Working with nature ís ephemera, including cicada wings, oyster shells, and human cadavers, her praxis is an extended death ritual which foregrounds a unique reverence for the discarded. Capturing the meanings imbued in these materials and the rituals informing their significance and sentimentality enables both the facilitation of environmental, social, and political activism through art and the creation of outlets for the public navigation of grief and mourning in a world so defined by loss.
Born and raised in the woods just outside of Barcelona, Spain, she found solace in nature from a young age and cultivated a profound interest in the ephemeral, as inspired by the natural world around her. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015 and her MFA in sculpture from Yale University in 2017. Aparicioís work has been shown internationally in solo and group exhibitions including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago; Yale Center for British Art; Can Mario Museum, Spain; CRUSH Curatorial, New York; The Kyoto International Craft Center, Japan; Instituto Cervantes, New York; and the Centre de Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona. She was awarded the JUNCTURE Fellowship in Art and International Human Rights in 2016, the Blair Dickinson Memorial Prize in 2017, and received a MAKER Grant from the Chicago Artist Coalition in 2020.She was also name done of the 2020 breakout artists in Chicago by NewCity Art, made the Short List for the 2021 Foundwork Artist Prize, and received the Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation Artadia Award in 2022. Her sculpture Auto-da-FÈ, exhibited at EXPO Chicago2023, was donated to the DePaul Art Museum with funds from the Inaugural Barbara Nessim Acquisition Prize. Sheís currently working on two outdoor permanent sculptures for both the Belgium Beaufort 2024 Triennale and the Heraclea Archeological Park in Italy.
The Theodore Randall Chair was established in 2007 to honor the legacy of artist and educator Theodore Randall, remembered as the architect of the School of Art and Design at Alfred and as a significant artist and organizer in the field. The Randall Chair is open to established, international artists living outside the United States as non us citizens who, by virtue of their stature as experienced artists, will bring diverse cultural insight. The chair rotates each semester through the divisions within the school.
The Arts Speaker Series will be held once per month on the third Thursday of the month at 4:30pm during the 2023-2024 Academic Year.