The Schneider Museum of Art is hosting a talk by mixed-media sculptor and installation artist Vanessa Calvert.  The artist will present the general overriding themes in her art and discuss the materials and processes used in her sculptural work on Thursday, January 24, at 5:30 PM in the Meese Auditorium at the Center for the Visual Arts on the Southern Oregon University (SOU) campus.

Calvert, who resides and works in Portland, is visiting the SOU campus through February 7 as part of the Schneider Museum of Art’s artist-in-residence program. She is creating work to be shown in the museum and interacting with students, faculty, and townspeople during her stay on the SOU campus.  The aim of Calvert’s lecture and residency is to support the creation of new artworks by Oregon artists and cultivate artistic exchange and dialogue between the Portland and Medford/Ashland areas.  This program is made possible through the generous support of the Ford Family Foundation.

Calvert states that her “work invokes the personal and collective mythology of domestic objects with forms evolving out of household materials and structures. The pieces explore the connection we have with the objects and spaces that surround us – becoming reflections of ourselves, delicately balanced between order and disorder. Evoking personal, cultural, and utilitarian histories, the materials are imprinted with traces of human identities and power structures. The pieces suggest the familiarity of the home but have begun to evolve away from it – becoming active, animate, and in conversation with each other. Located in a transient state between creation and destruction, they reflect the fluctuating nature of identity and the fragile barrier between formed and unformed.”