Thursday, May 25, 2017
6:30pm, presentations begin at 7pm
$5-$10 sliding scale admission fee
At the University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMass Amherst

This month’s ArtSalon will be at The University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMass Amherst. The evening begins at 6:30pm with mingling and light refreshments, and presentations start at 7pm.

A brief Q&A period with the artists follows the presentations.

This program is supported in part by The Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts and Fierst, Kane and Bloomberg.

Presenting artists:
Daniel Kojo Schrade, Ellen Grobman, Jieun Shin, Cullen Washington and Kathy Couch

Daniel Kojo Schrade is a visual artist and professor of art at Hampshire College. His work includes repeated motifs such as the “Afronaut” figure and the cycle entitled “Brother Beethoven”. Schrade combines performance, installation and abstract expressive painting strategies with textual elements and personal iconographies in his pieces. His paintings and installations have been presented internationally including the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Oaxaca (Mexico), Goethe Institute Accra (Ghana), and the Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (Poland). Daniel Kojo Schrade holds an M.F.A (Diploma) from the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Germany. His work is represented in various international art collections. www.danielkojoschrade.com

Ellen Grobman is a painter based in Leverett, Massachusetts, where she has lived for more than 25 years. She has had a daily studio practice for a decade longer than that, and without it, she says, “nothing else is in balance, nothing else completely works.” Her abstract pieces are vividly colored and delicately textured. They communicate, through elegant gestures and veiled messages, a visceral emotional undercurrent, and a desire to connect. Her work has been shown in Massachusetts, New York, and Los Angeles, California. www.ellengrobman.com

Jieun Shin earned her BFA and MFA at Ewha Woman’s University in Seoul, Korea. She studied painting and printmaking in her undergraduate and Information Design in her graduate studies. After she moved to the United States, Jieun earned her second MFA degree at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Since 2007 she has been exhibiting her work continuously in the U.S and Korea. She is also a recipient of Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship 2014 and of Artist’s Resource Trust Grant at Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation 2009. http://jieunshin.com

Cullen Washington Jr. received his BA from Louisiana State University and his MFA from Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. A 2016 Artist in Residence at Amherst College, Washington Jr. has exhibited his work widely in group and solo shows nation-wide and abroad including The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; The Studio Museum; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum; The Jack Bell Gallery and Saatchi Gallery London. In addition to Amherst College, Washington Jr. has been an artist in residence at The Studio Museum, Rush Arts Gallery, Yaddo, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He was the recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Award in 2009 and a Bartlett and Montague Travel Grant in 2008. Cullen’s work can be found in the collections of the Studio Museum in Harlem and Saatchi Gallery. www.cwashingtonstudio.com/home.html

For 17 years, Bessie Award winning designer Kathy Couch has been creating visual landscapes for performance and installation works. Primarily working in the mediums of light and space, Couch has designed performances in New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Australia, Armenia, Russia, Latvia, Serbia and throughout New England. Along with light and space, Couch uses language, readymade objects and photography to craft experiences of engagement that allow visitors/audience to contemplate moments of being and activate their vital role as contributors to the work and the world. She currently teaches Lighting Design at Amherst College and is a founding board member of the Northampton Community Arts Trust that seeks innovative ways to preserve arts space. www.instagram.com/kccouch/