Clay – Faculty
Andréa Keys Connell - Assistant Professor
Andréa Keys Connell (b. Manassas, VA 1980) received her MFA from Ohio University in 2009 and her BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art in 2002. She is currently the Assistant Professor of Ceramics in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Craft/Material Studies. She has had numerous honors and awards such as serving as VCU’S Fountainhead Fellow, being an invited artist at Arrowmont’s Figurative Association: Human Form in Clay Symposium, being a finalist for the Center For Contemporary Craft’s LEAP Award, and being named one of Ceramics Monthly’s 2009 Emerging Artists. Andréa was published in a review in Art Papers magazine for her exhibition Un-Home-Like in 2010, and will be a featured artist in the July 2011 Korean Ceramics Monthly, and Yekong Art Books : How to Look at Contemporary Ceramics. She has exhibited her work nationally in galleries such as the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena Montana, The Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, PA, Roy G Biv Gallery in Columbus, OH, and Santa Fe Clay in Santa Fe, NM. She has also had numerous solo exhibitions in venues such as The Florida Holocaust Museum in St Petersburg, FL, The Sculpture Center in Cleveland, OH, Page Bond Gallery in Richmond, VA, and the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft in Louisville, KY.
Andréa has upcoming solo exhibitions at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, PA and Quirk Gallery in Richmond, VA. She will be exhibiting in invited group exhibitions at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Mass. and the Urban Art Space in Columbus, OH.
Along with exhibiting her work, Andréa presents lectures that correlate with her interests in the study of intergenerational trauma and third generation Holocaust survivors. Her sculptures and writings are driven by a desire to investigate how an individual’s personal history affects their identity, behaviors, and actions.
MFA Ohio University
BFA Maryland Institute of Art
Allan Rosenbaum - Professor
My works engage viewers on many levels – through form and surface as well as image and content. They weave together objects and images that are culled from personal memories, art history, popular culture, domestic interiors, the urban environment and landscapes. By creating sculptures composed of combinations of familiar images, I hope to shed new light on the metaphorical possibilities of the figure and of objects in our everyday world. Central to my work is the use of fragmented forms and unexpected juxtapositions to trigger multiple interpretations for each object. Through my work I hope to raise questions about the nature of human relationships, the need for security, our methods of communication, the search for identity, and the importance of community. To provide a point of entry for my work, I go to great lengths to emphasize the materiality of the objects I build. I work with clay that is pinched and scraped, and a rich palette of glaze surfaces to entice viewers to become involved with my work. By negotiating the territory between material presence and content, I hope to create work with an intimate sense of presence.
Education
MFA Virginia Commonwealth University
BS University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI