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Come to our many events and lectures and get involved! Something fun is always happening.

The San José State University's, School of Art and Design, proudly brings one of the most extensive exhibition and lecture series amongst all art and design programs in the United States, to our students, community and visitors.

Our main gallery, The Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery, presents an ever-changing display of work by prominent contemporary, and historically-relevant professional artists, as well as distinctive, often unusual, art collections, in six annual thought-provoking exhibits.

In addition to the main gallery, eight smaller galleries continually celebrate student creativity in an ongoing succession of cutting edge displays of fine art, photography, ceramics, metal-working, sculpture and more, providing the visitor with a glimpse of the future of art. In most of the galleries exhibits of student and class work changes weekly, resulting in over 160 unique exhibitions annually.

Most exhibits and lectures are free and open to all who wish to visit.

BEAN FINNERAN:
POLKA DOT PLATEAU

Opening
Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery
April 17 - May 18

Bean Finneran individually rolls out tens of thousands of thin and subtly curved ceramic coils that are then hand painted and interwoven with each other to create intricate, albeit temporary, sculptures. Balanced together without glue or other adhesives, the works derive their structural integrity solely from gravity and the strength of their interconnected linkages. In this exhibition, which Finneran is creating especially for the Thompson Gallery, she will create a landscape of curves, geometric forms, and contrasting dots of colors. The work is about time – slow time. She explains, “Looking to nature and natural process my sculptures are always about change and the possibility of transformation. The forms are constructed slowly on site, curve by curve, a performance resulting in a temporary landscape of contrasting color and form. I create a temporary composition and relationship between the forms, colors, light, and the space.” With Polka Dot Plateau, Finneran will work with contrasting forms and colors to create a polka-dotted landscape within the gallery.

Finneran has said that she finds constructing the intricate works “repetitive and meditative” but not tedious. Coming out of a theatre background, she responds to the “absolute possibility of transformation” that these built-up works provide: “Both [theatre and creating a site-specific installation] are about arriving in an empty space and putting something together for a limited period of time. And in both, you have a sense that you’re not totally in control. I think that’s a wonderful thing.”

Finneran studied at Goucher College, the University of Michigan, the Museum School run by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. She has had several solo exhibitions on the West Coast and beyond, and her work is in the collection of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, MO, and the San Jose Museum of Art, among others.

In conjunction with the opening of this exhibition, Bean Finneran will lecture on her work April 17 from 5 – 6 pm in Art #133. This presentation and the following opening reception are free and open to the public.

Jo Farb Hernández, Professor and Director
Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery

DEPARTMENT OF ART & ART HISTORY GRADUATION CEREMONY:
SPRINT 2012

Event
Music Concert Hall
May 24 at 4 pm

Please see the information about the department of Art & Art History Graduation Ceremony.