April 23 – May 11, 2024
Senior Capstone Exhibitions
Opening reception: Tuesday, April 23, 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
September 10 – October 19, 2024
Ashes, 2023, oil and collage on canvas, 63″ x 112″
Progression: Work by Robert Stuart
Opening reception: Tuesday, September 10, 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
Artist’s Gallery Talk: 5:30 p.m.
Working with materials, thinking with materials, sensing their potential as you interact with them—constructing and deconstructing—to make an object with a physical presence that can provide a locus for emotional, intuitive responses that can engage the viewer in a deep, interior way. This is the process and the potential of painting. The physical becoming meta-physical. Intimations of infinity.
I love this quote from President Kennedy engraved in the wall at the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC: “The life of the arts . . . . is close to the center of a nation’s purpose—and is a test of the quality of a nation’s civilization.” It gives me hope and support as an artist in our contemporary world, a world in need of authenticity and beauty which art can provide.
About the Artist
About half of Robert Stuart’s time growing up was spent overseas in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific while his father worked for USAID and UNESCO. Stuart was encouraged in art by his mother who attended The Art Students League, and taught art, and also by a longtime family friend, Catalan artist Pierre Daura, who had been a member of “Cercle et Carré,” (Circle and Square), the avant-garde group in Paris that included artists such as Mondrian, Arp, and Kandinsky. Four years at Boston University’s School for the Arts was a rigorous, traditional program with much figure drawing, and where Philip Guston was a major influence.
Following an MFA at James Madison University Stuart launched a career as a painter of landscapes and still-lifes, confident painting “before the motif,” and found success in galleries. An art historian friend once said that he was “an abstract painter who went outside.” Being selected for two exhibits at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts were important early boosts for Stuart’s career.
After ten years exhibiting in prominent galleries with his unique representational style, but with episodes of experimenting with abstraction, his responses to abstract paintings became so strong and his need for it so compelling that he could no longer deny it. Discovering the painter Agnes Martin’s paintings and writings was crucial. Finally, immediately after visiting Zen gardens in Japan, a vivid dream of a large, red, abstract painting was so potent that Stuart had to make the painting, and set out newly committed to pure abstraction. Almost immediately, there were two major validations for the artist: he was selected for the New Orleans Museum of Art Triennial, and not long after, Stuart received an “Academy Award in Art” from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Stuart’s home and studio are in Staunton, Virginia. He is represented by Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, Virginia.
October 29 – November 30, 2024
INHERITED SUCCESSION: Instill and Inspire
Work and Reflections by Elan Cadiz
Opening reception: Tuesday, October 29, 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
Artist’s Gallery Talk: 5:30 p.m.
Élan Cadiz is an interdisciplinary, multi-ethnic, multi-racial, North American, native New Yorker, and visual artist who deconstructs and balances her intersectionality through her creative projects. Élan’s art and practice are grounded in the documentation of her personal narrative through the use of portraiture, domestic and historical imagery.
Cadiz’s artworks explore the ways societal and personal histories overlap and affect individual relationships, power dynamics and identity. The materials she works with are influenced by the subjects she discuss which is why she moves skillfully through mediums, combining and collaging the best materials to convey her visual language.
Cadiz’s intention is to speak to the boundless potential in humanity and ways our pasts can inform our future for the better, despite impediments that arise. Her goal is to have viewers question their condition(s) in ways that bring about helpful inner inquiry and thoughtful discussion.
About the Artist
Élan Cadiz’s formal training began in the High School of Art & Design, New York City. After graduation she was accepted to the Fashion Institute of Technology where she studied Advertisement and Design and Photography for two years. Cadiz graduated from City College of New York City with a BA in Studio Art and Education in 2008. Cadiz received her Master’s in Fine Art (MFA) from the School of Visual Arts May 2018 and received the Martha Trevor Award/ Worldstudio AIGA Scholarship, Paula Rhodes Memorial Award and the School of Visual Arts Merit Scholarship.
Since 2014 Cadiz has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions and she has been engaged in numerous artist residencies.
Cadiz has instructed young people in the arts for 24 years and taught for or was in collaboration with programs/institutions such as the Harlem School of the Arts, Thurgood Marshall Upper and Lower Academies, Harlem Children Zone, No Longer Empty, Cool Culture, Bank Street College, Weeksville Heritage Center, the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York Historical Society, Center for Arts Education, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the Boys Club of New York City, Foster Pride, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan and the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling, Bridgehampton Museum and more.
December 3 – December 11, 2024
Senior Capstone Exhibitions
Opening reception: Tuesday, December 3, 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
January 28 – February 8, 2025
Art + Art History PGTI Solo Exhibition
Opening reception: Tuesday, January 28, 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
Artist’s Gallery Talk: 5:30 p.m.
February 18 – March 29, 2025
Principia College Studio Art Faculty Exhibition
Opening reception: Tuesday, February 18, 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
Artists’ Gallery Talk: 5:30 p.m.
April 8 – 17, 2025
25: The Annual Principia College Juried Student Exhibition
Opening reception: Tuesday, April 8, 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
Juror: To Be Announced
Juror’s Gallery Talk and presentation of awards: 5:30 p.m.
April 22 – May 10, 2025
Senior Capstone Exhibitions
Opening reception: Tuesday, April 22, 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.