After I posted about the new painting faculty at Connecticut College, Brooklyn College and Rutgers University yesterday, I got a note from Sharon Horvath, associate professor at SUNY Purchase, reporting that the School of Art and Design has added three full-time professors to their painting faculty as well. After what I imagine was an exhausting search, they selected Matthew Bollinger, Cynthia Lin, and Beth Livensperger.
The SUNY hires all use traditional drawing and painting skills in their art practices, which, on a visual level, are engaged with the dialogue between representation and abstraction. Each has had career success with grants, awards and residencies, but none could be considered an “art star” in the commercial gallery world. All solid picks, the selection indicates that Purchase is investing in potential, opting for strong teaching and dedication to painting (not a combination of painting with newer media) rather than gallery affiliation or critical attention.
born in Taiwan and grew up near Chicago. In 2006 she was a Guggenheim Fellow, has had a solo show at Michael Steinberg Gallery and been included in nummerous group shows, most recently �Lush Life� at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York,
and �Art on Paper 2010 Biennial� at Weatherspoon Art Museum, University
of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC. She has done a lot of residencies, including Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, The Space Program at the Marie
Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Virginia Center
for the Creative Arts, the Visiting Artists
and Scholars Program at the American Academy in Rome, Ragdale, Constance
Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and Hall Farm Center for the Arts and
Education. Her teaching experience includes eleven years at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where she achieved the rank of associate professor, and part-time appointments at the School
of the Museum of Fine Arts, Brooklyn College, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and
Art,
Sarah Lawrence College, Dartmouth
College,
Morehead State University, and The University of Iowa, where she received her MFA.
Based in Queens, Beth has been teaching at SUNY as an adjunct lecturer since 2010. She earned her BFA at Cooper Union in 2001 and an MFA in painting and printmaking at Yale in 2008. In 2007 she received a
Radius Fellowship, an award for emerging artists sponsored by the Aldrich Museum. Although Beth hasn’t had any notable solo shows in commercial galleries, she had a show at Abrons Art Center at Henry Street Settlement where she was a resident artist, and she has
participated in numerous group outings, including shows at Active Space in Bushwick and The Painting Center in Chelsea. Beth also taught as an adjunct at Adelphi University Department of Art and Art History.
Congratulations to both the new professors and to SUNY Purchase. If only more administrators realized that hiring more full-time faculty (instead of relying on adjuncts) ultimately makes universities stronger.
Related post:
Who got hired? A few new painting professors (August 24, 2012)
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Beth's oil canvas paintings are great. Love the perspectives she brings in her canvas paintings.