School of Art Welcomes Visual Artist Caroline Kent to Lecture Series

Don Juan Ibitayo Sr.

Visiting Lecture by Caroline Kent

The School of Art in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is pleased to welcome visual artist Caroline Kent to the virtual Visiting Lecture Series at 4:30 p.m. tonight, Thursday, March 31. 

Kent is a Chicago-based visual artist. An article by the New York Times Style Magazine noted that her canvases, "explore the power and limits of language – and challenge the modernist canon of abstraction."

She studies the relationship between language, translation and abstraction while simultaneously speaking to her own lived experience. Her practice and curiosity takes multiple forms of drawings, paintings, text, sculpture and performance.

Aaron R. Turner, teaching assistant professor at the School of Art, works heavily within abstraction and shares that he was immediately drawn to her work when he first encountered it almost two years ago. 

"I'm excited for Caroline's lecture and for students to get the opportunity to hear how she talks about her work," he said. "She draws from practical areas of her life as motivation to create unique visual aesthetics, and at the same time, operates on a level that is accessible to a multitude of audiences."

Kent received a B.S. from Illinois State University and an M.F.A. from The University of Minnesota. She currently has a solo exhibition on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, which will run through June 12. 

The exhibition consists of an immersive installation titled Victoria/Veronica: Making Room, which brings together paintings, sculptures, sound and architectural interventions. Victoria and Veronica are a fictional set of identical twins who communicate telepathically across two distinct environments: a writing room and a reading lounge. While physically distanced, the twins are united by the secret language they share. 

Previously, Kent's work has been exhibited at institutions such as The Walker Art Center, The DePaul Art Museum, The California African American Museum, The Flag Art Foundation, The Suburban and The Museum of Contemporary Art. In addition, her work is in the collections of the Walker Art Center, The Art Institute of Chicago, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Dallas Museum of Art.  

She has received grants from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The McKnight Foundation and The Jerome Foundation. In 2018, she was a Paint School fellow of the New York-based program, Shandaken Projects. Most recently, she was selected as a 2020 awardee of the Artadia Foundation Chicago. 

Kent is an assistant professor of painting at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. 

All are invited to learn more about Kent and her work Thursday, March 31, at 4:30 p.m. The virtual Visiting Lecture Series is free and open to the public.

Join the virtual lecture on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84248172945.