CU Boulder Art & Art History

Join us in celebrating the Spring 2026 Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition: Round 2 on Friday, April 17th from 4-6pm! Leading up to the reception, we will be sharing each of the artists in the show. Today’s artist is Brionna Garcia. About their work Brionna says, “”Biomies” offers a gesture of care toward endangered animal beings, imagining multispecies kinship through decolonial, ecological frameworks. Using sci-fi worldbuilding alongside drawing & painting, the work envisions animal-human hybrids transgressing the apocalypse toward a future of shared survival.” Be sure to stop by to see Brionna’s work in person and enjoy light refreshments and community this Friday! On view April 18–May 2, 2026. Free and all are welcome! @cuboulder_aah #CUboulder #ColoradoArt

Join us in celebrating the Spring 2026 Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition: Round 2 on Friday, April 17th from 4-6pm! Leading up to the reception, we will be sharing each of the artists in the show. Today’s artist is Ethan Cherry. About their work Ethan says, “my thesis project “Here to Serve” explores painting as an act of devotion, both private and performed. The phrase itself is double-edged: to serve can mean to labor with humility and discipline; yet in queer vernacular, it also means to serve with confidence, to present oneself with style and conviction—to “slay.”” Be sure to stop by to see Ethan’s work in person and enjoy light refreshments and community this Friday! On view April 18–May 2, 2026. Free and all are welcome! @cuboulder_aah #CUboulder #ColoradoArt

Mark your calendar! Our BFA candidates will showcase their thesis work in the Visual Arts Complex on April 24th. Join us to celebrate their accomplishments! The exhibition opens on Friday, April 24th with a reception from 4-6PM.

Join us for Barbara Madsen's Visiting Artist Lecture! Monday, April 20th at 4:00 PM Visual Arts Complex Auditorium (lower-level 1B20) Barbara Madsen is an artist and Professor at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. Madsen’s practice is at the intersection of sculpture, prints, painting, ready-mades, and photography. Her vast collections of industrial matter -- spark plugs, machine parts, welding masks, light switches, rubber, plastic, prosthetics, artificial eyes, toys and much more – serve as the stimulus for the work. Her work is riddled with skeptical questions about society, civilization and collapse. Who is the Guardian and who is the Barbarian? Who enters the gate and who’s banned? She aims to lift the lid off canonical hierarchical art forms and queer space. Her work is an ever-evolving quest that picks out and unravels a new thread about greed and power to see how far she can push farcical realities from the primitive to the futuristic. Her explosive use of color is in the service of creating awkward, ridiculously sublime sculptures-works and installations that seem to infect, corrupt, and devour the universe. Yet, seeks joy and sustenance to find balance in an absurd world. She has had solo exhitions theBlanc Gallery in NYC; Qi Fengge Musuem of Print History, Shenzen, China; MGalleries, NJ; New York Public Library, NYC; Scuola de Grafica, Venice, Italy; Sykes Gallery, PA; Lowry Lab Theater, MN; Palacky University, Czech Republic; Graphics Collective Gallery, Belgrade, Serbia; Recitation Gallery, DE; Pratt Studios Gallery, Brooklyn; Benedicta Art Center, MN; Sommers Gallery, MN; Minneapolis College of Art and Design, MN; and Tyler School of Art, PA, among others. Madsen has been included over 100 group exhibitions. Madsen's works are in the collections of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco Museum of Art, Princeton University firestone Library, Swarthmore College, Lafayette CollgeLibrary of Congress, Dartmouth College, University of Sharijah: United Arab Emirates, Guanlan Print Museum, Shenzhen, China, New York Public Library, and the Amoco Corporation.

Friday, April 17th from 1:30–3:00pm at the CU Art Museum Join us at the CU Art Museum for a public reading of “The Cancer Journals” (1980) by Black, lesbian, warrior, mother, and poet, Audre Lorde, in conversation with Hollis Sigler’s lithograph, “I Find Hope on the Horizons of my Tomorrows” (1996). Following the event, the art museum will host a short reception in which participants may discuss the works while enjoying pastries from Boxcar Coffee and tea. Free and all are welcome! Registration is required - RSVP here: https://www.colorado.edu/cuartmuseum/programs-virtual-activities/cancer-journals-aloud #CUboulder @cuboulder_aah

Don't miss MFA candidates Mahda Purmehdi and Cal Young — film screenings following the public opening of the Spring Thesis Exhibition at CU Art Museum. Friday, April 17 • 6:15 PM Solomon Screening Room, ATLAS 102 See you there!

📣Attention All Students!! 📣This is an amazing opportunity to build your art practice beyond your studio. Register today!! 📍2026 Art & Environments Field School locations: Boulder, Colorado North Park, Colorado THE MOUNTAIN RESEARCH STATION 💥💥Topics include: RURAL SPACE + LAND USE Alpine ECOLOGY + Geology mountain ornithology + tundra CU degree students may simply search for ARTS 4444/5444 and register online via the Buff portal. Make sure you are searching “Boulder Continuing Education” EMAIL [email protected] or [email protected] if you have issues or need a permission code to register. This course gives priority to Art and Art History majors but is open to all majors. The Field School is also open to students from universities other than CU-Boulder

Another amazing opportunity to celebrate our students and the hard work they have accomplished during their time at CU Boulder! Art History ​Thesis Showcase​ This exhibition celebrates the scholarship of Tylyn King (B.A. with Honors candidate​), Bella Malherbe (M.A. candidate​), and Felicity Wong (M.A. candidate​). Join us for the reception: Tuesday, April 14​, 4:30-5:30pm​, VAC 1st Floor Lobby​ Refreshments will be served. All are welcome! On view April 13 – 16, 2026. Images: Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola, CAMOUFLAGE #077 (Franzia) (detail), 2021; Claudia Hermano, two to take my soul away (detail), 2024​; Kent Monkman, The Deluge (detail), 2019.

Mark your calendar!! MFA Thesis Exhibition: Group 2 Opening Reception: Friday, April 17, from 4-6 PM Exhibition dates: April 18-May 2, 2026 Featured artists: Ethan Cherry, Brionna Garcia, Cal Young CU Art Museum Visual Arts Complex Museum hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 AM-4 PM

An event facilitated by our very own @autonomoussoup Corrina Espinosa!! Mark your calendar!

Join us for a special talk with Jordan Ann Craig as she shares insights from her residency at Swoon Art House in Boulder. Craig will speak about her experience during the residency, her creative process, and her journey as a Native artist. Don’t miss this inspiring conversation celebrating art, identity, and community. When: Monday, April 13, 2026 | 4:00 PM Where: Visual Arts Complex (VAC) | Room: 1B20 Address: 1085 18th Street Boulder, CO Jordan Ann Craig is a Northern Cheyenne artist living and working in Pojoaque Valley, New Mexico. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and received her B.A. from Dartmouth College. In 2017, Jordan was awarded the H. Allen Brooks Traveling Fellowship as well as the Eric and Barbara Dobkin Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research SAR). In 2019, Jordan was awarded artist residencies at the Institute for American Indian Arts (IAIA) and the Roswell Artist-in-Residence (RAiR) Program. Her work is shown nationally and internationally. Jordan is currently the Native Artist in Residency at Swoon Art House in Boulder, CO. @cnaisboulder

This artist talk is in association with the Yes &… exhibition on view at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, January 29 - May 3, 2026. William Cobbing is a featured artist in the show curated by Tobias Fike & Donald Fodness. About the Exhibition: Rooted in improvisational theater, “Yes, And” is a phrase that embodies an ethos of acceptance and addition. The concept resonates with many contemporary visual artists who emphasize intuition, improvisation, and process. Drawing on this approach, Yes &... brings together an eclectic mix of styles and aesthetics from 18 artists united by their human-centered focus and perspective. About William Cobbing: Starting from a sculptural sensibility, Cobbing’s art practice encompasses a diverse range of media, including video and installation. Performative encounters are devised with material, such as clay, in which the protagonists are engaged in a repetitive and absurd cycle of manipulating formless surfaces. The works allude to concepts of entropy, underlining the extent to which earthly material is irreversibly dispersed, giving rise to a definitive blurring of the boundaries between the body and landscape, whilst putting the possibility of conclusion on hold. William Cobbing studied sculpture at Central St Martins, De Ateliers, an artists’ institute in Amsterdam and a PhD by Practice at Middlesex University. This talk is generously supported by the Roser Visiting Artist Program at the University of Colorado Boulder. Visual Arts Complex University of Colorado Boulder 1085 18th Street, Boulder, CO 80309 @bmoca @tobiasfike @donald_fodness