Visiting Artist Speaker Series

Public recordings of select Visiting Artist Speaker Series sessions can be found on the Department of Art YouTube here. For additional Speaker Series recordings held in the Department Archive, inquire with the Art Resource Manager. 

Aug. 31 - Althea Murphy-Price

Sept. 14 - Theo. Triandos

Sept. 21 - Lyndon Barrois Jr.

• In partnership with Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Art
  

Sept. 28 - Teresa Baker

Oct. 5 - Mirae kh Rhee

• In partnership with Asia Research Institute at UB
  

Oct. 19 - Tiffany E. Barber 

Oct. 26 - Claudia Bitrán 

Nov. 2 - Jacob Todd Broussard

Nov. 9 - Emily Hamilton

Nov. 16 - Alex Center

Nov. 23 - Mara Baldwin

• In partnership with UB Art Galleries
  

Nov. 30 - Catherine Telford Keogh

• In partnership with the UB Coalesce Center for Biological Art 
  

Dec. 7 - Joanna Zylinska

• In partnership with UB Humanities Institute, UB Critical AI Studies Research Group, UB New Polish Studies Initiative and UB Department of Comparative Literature

Althea Murphy-Price is the quintessential printmaker; she employs craft, ink, and technology in mark-making to investigate conversations of beauty, womanhood, and representation through the lens of commodity.  Living in Knoxville, TN, where she is a Professor at the University of Tennessee, she received her BA in Fine Art from Spelman College, her MA in Printmaking and Painting from Purdue University, and her MFA from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University. She is included in multiple public collections, including The Whitney Museum of American Art, Knoxville Museum of Art,  and the Huntsville Museum of Art; her work has been featured in such publications as Art Papers Magazine, Art in Print Magazine, and Printmaking Today (UK), CAA Reviews Journal, Printmaking: A Complete Guide to Materials and Process, and Printmakers Today. Murphy-Price lives and works in Knoxville, TN, where she is a Professor at the University of Tennessee.

Theo. Triandos is an Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Studies at UB, specializing in gender and sexuality in 20th century North American art. Triandos’s recent article, “Inside and Outside of Queer: Deborah Kass’s Feel Good Paintings for Feel Bad Times” (2024) is out in Woman’s Art Journal. His book, Gender Deconstruction in North American Art, 1960-1999, will appear with Routledge. Triandos’s other projects explore gender destabilization in the thriller genre of Western cinema, since 1950, and cultural identity formation in the writing of art criticism. Triandos teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in art history, visual culture, history of criticism, and theory. He has spoken at institutions such as the Clark Art Institute, The University of Chicago, The Courtauld, and The Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame.

Lyndon Barrois Jr. (b. New Orleans, LA) is an artist based in Toronto, and is an Assistant Professor of Art at YorkUniversity. He is half of LAB-D Studios, with artist Addoley Dzegede, with whom he has collaboratively staged four exhibitions, and co-authored a book of essays (Elleboog, at the Jan van Eyck Academie in 2019). He uses cinema as a means to travel both temporally and geographically, bringing to mind ideas of anachronism, simultaneity, and reanimation. Looking at branding strategies of old cinema—along with the phased-out profession of shooting film stills—he considers these methods ways to represent a film that has yet to be seen. He is currently undergoing a project that uses the heist film and museum context to contend with legacies of colonial extraction. Barrois Jr. received his MFA from Washington University in St. Louis (2013), and his BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore (2006). He has completed residencies at LATITUDE Chicago, Loghaven, the Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht (Netherlands), Fogo Island Arts in Newfoundland, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Ireland, and the Starr Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Arts London.

Teresa Baker is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes in Western ND. Through a mixed media practice combining artificial and natural materials together, Baker creates abstracted landscapes that explore vast space, and how we move, see and explore within them. Recent solo exhibitions include the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO; The American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York; COMA Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Broadway Gallery, New York; and de boer, Los Angeles. Recent group exhibitions include the Whitney Biennial, New York, NY; Prospect. 6 Triennial, New Orleans, LA; Made In LA at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA. Baker is a 2025 Guggenheim fellow, a 2022 Joan Mitchell Fellow, and the recipient of the 2020 Native American Fellowship at the Ucross Foundation. Baker was a Tournesol Artist-in-Residence at The Headlands Center for the Arts, as well as an artist in residence at FOGO Island in Newfoundland. She received her BA from Fordham University and MFA from California College of the Arts. 

Mirae kh Rhee is a South Korean-born interdisciplinary artist whose independent, research-based practice explores cultural inheritance, kinship, migration, and belonging. Working between Berlin, Seoul, and California, the artist develops long-term projects that weave personal testimony with collective histories realized with installation, textiles, performance, and participatory processes. Combining autoethnographic inquiry with archival research and collaborative forms of artistic production, Rhee considers how histories and identities are shaped through acts of collecting, representation, and display, while examining how people, objects, and cultures become legible—or illegible. Recent solo museum exhibitions include Hand-Me-Down / Weiterreichen at the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Humboldt Forum, Berlin (2026–27), and Constellations at the San Diego Museum of Art (2025–26). Rhee also publishes essays and creative nonfiction on transnational adoption, cultural identity, and practices of return and repair. 

Dr. Tiffany E. Barber is an award-winning scholar, curator, and critic whose work reshapes how we understand race, gender, and representation. A sought-after voice in contemporary art, culture, and fashion, her expert commentary spans academic journals, museum exhibitions, acclaimed documentaries, and major media outlets like The Nation, Huffington Post, Frieze, and Tate Etc. Currently Assistant Professor of African American Art at UCLA, Dr. Barber blends art history, performance theory, and Black feminist thought in ways that challenge institutions, inspire audiences, and open up space for new cultural futures. Her accolades include the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery Director’s Essay Prize; leadership roles at the International Journal of Surrealism, the Delaware Contemporary, the College Board, and the Black Speculative Arts Movement; and numerous fellowships. Her path-breaking exhibitions have been featured in Surface Magazine and Google Arts and Culture. Her debut monograph, Undesirability and Her Sisters: Black Women’s Visual Work and the Ethics of Representation (NYU Press, 2025), cements her reputation as a leading tastemaker and thinker of this generation.

Claudia Bitrán is a painter, video artist and teacher who spent her formative years in Santiago, Chile and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. She holds an MFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design (2013), and a BFA from the Universidad Católica de Chile (2009). Among selected grants and awards are a Visual Arts Guggenheim Fellowship (2023), a FondArt Nacional Audiovisual (2022 and 2023), Emergency Grant Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2015), Jerome Foundation Grant for Emerging Filmmakers (2015), 1st Prize Britney Spears Dance Challenge (2017), winner of the UFO McDonald’s Painting Competition (2016), 1st mention at Bienal de Artes Mediales (2015), Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile. Her upcoming solo exhibition in New York will open in June at Museum of Moving Image. Notable past solo exhibitions include Cristin Tierney Gallery (NY, 2026), KIOSK (Ghent, Belgium 2025), Centro Cultural Matucana 100 (Santiago 2023), Marytwo Gallery (Switzerland 2023), Signs and Symbols Gallery (NY 2022), Cristin Tierney Gallery (NY 2022), Walter Storms Galerie (Munich 2020), Practice Gallery (PA 2018), Roswell Museum and Art Center (NM 2017), Museo de Artes Visuales (Santiago 2016). She has participated in group exhibitions, screenings and performances worldwide. Her work has been covered by The New York Times, Artnet, The Brooklyn Rail, CBC, Art Nexus, among others. Bitrán was a resident at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program, Pioneer Works, Smack Mellon Studio Program, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Outpost Projects and Wassaic Projects. She currently teaches in the painting departments at Pratt Institute and Lehman College and is an active lecturer for various art schools and institutions.

Jacob Todd Broussard (b. 1992) received his BFA in Painting from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2014 and his MFA in Painting from Yale School of Art in 2019. He’s shown work in various exhibitions across the US, Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, Singapore, and Belgium. Solo exhibitions include Wolfgang Gallery in Atlanta, Towards Gallery in Toronto, Steven Zevitas Gallery in Boston, Rivalry Projects in Buffalo, PEEP Gallery in Philadelphia and more. He was a 2020/21 Drawing Center Viewing Program participant and a recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Grant for three consecutive years. His work has been reviewed in Elephant Magazine, Cornelia Magazine and Burnaway. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Golden Artist Residency, Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency, The League Residency at Vyt, and more. He co-founded Kingfish Gallery, an art and architecture project space based in Buffalo. His work is represented by Wolfgang Gallery in Atlanta and Towards Gallery in Toronto. Upcoming solo presentations include Fragment Gallery in New York, Galerie Thomas Fuchs in Stuttgart, Germany, and the Hilliard Art Museum in Louisiana. He is an Assistant Professor of Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University and lives in Richmond.

Emily Hamilton is the Associate Professor of Objects Conservation at SUNY Buffalo State. Prior to this role, she worked as an objects conservator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Saint Louis Art Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art. Emily earned a B.A. in Art History from Reed College and an M.A. and Certificate of Advanced Study in Art Conservation from SUNY Buffalo State. She served as an editor for the AIC Objects Specialty Group Postprints for eight years, was a co-organizer of the conference TechFocus IV: Caring for 3D-Printed Art, and is currently a chapter editor for the upcoming publication Caring for Plant Based Material Culture: A Conservation Handbook. Her interests include community-engaged and collaborative practice, large-scale sculpture and installation works, and engaging with students in their diverse areas of research.

Alex Center is a Brooklyn-based designer and founder of CENTER, the award-winning branding studio known for building bold, culturally relevant brands. Before starting his own company, he spent nearly a decade at The Coca-Cola Company, helping shape global brands like vitaminwater, Powerade and smartwater. At CENTER, he’s worked with icons like Apple and New Balance, breakout startups like Kin Euphorics and Liquid Death, and created new to world brands like United Sodas of America, Ayoh!, and Bero. He’s also a Professor at SVA’s Masters in Branding program, a member of the Art Directors Club board and cohost of the world famous podcast Front & Center. In 2026, Creative Boom named Alex one of the Top 20 Graphic Designers as voted by the creative community. In his shrinking personal time, he enjoys watching reality television, sitting on a beach chair next to his wife Jackie and finding reasons to believe that this is the year for the Knicks or the Mets. 

Mara Baldwin is an artist whose work focuses on the impossible dream of utopia and asks if a perfect life can include the imperfect feelings of failure, loneliness, and dissatisfaction. Baldwin's multidisciplinary and research-based work uses textiles and drawings to create serial and narrative forms. She shares her time between Ithaca and the Hudson Valley where she teaches drawing at Bard College. She is the recipient of two New York State Council on the Arts grants (2026; 2022) and has been awarded residencies at the McColl Center, Women’s Studio Workshop, Wassaic Project, Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency program, Ucross Foundation, Millay Colony for the Arts, Djerassi, and Saltonstall Foundation, among others. Recent solo and group exhibitions at venues including Field Projects, Garrison Art Center, Handwerker Gallery (Ithaca College), Albany Airport, Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse); Wassaic Project; Herbert F. Johnson Art Museum at Cornell University; and the Rosefsky Gallery at Binghamton University. Forthcoming exhibitions at September Gallery (Kinderhook, NY) and the University of Buffalo Center for the Arts.

Catherine Telford Keogh (b. Toronto, Canada; based in New York) works across sculpture and installation, following objects past the point of seduction as matter is held, crushed, preserved, resignified, and dissolved within systems of extraction and circulation, binding deep time and industrial acceleration within a single material field.

Selected exhibitions include Cradlers, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens (2025); Carriers (Gravity-Fed), GTA24 Triennial, Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (2024); and Shelf Life, Helena Anrather, New York (2023). Group exhibitions include the Bronx Museum; the Seattle Art Museum; the Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris; ILY2, New York; HESSE FLATOW, Amagansett; Galeria Fidelidade Arte, Lisbon; Franz Kaka, Toronto; and Public Gallery, London, among others.

Telford Keogh is the inaugural recipient of the Jack Galef Visual Arts Award from the Guggenheim and a 2026 Creative Capital awardee. She holds an M.F.A. in Sculpture and an M.A.R. in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, both from Yale University.

Joanna Zylinska is a writer, lecturer, artist and curator, working in the areas of digital technologies and new media, ethics, photography and art. She is Professor of Media Philosophy + Critical Digital Practice in the Department of Digital Humanities at King's College London. She is also a member of Creative AI Lab, a collaboration between King's and Serpentine Galleries. Prior to joining King's in 2021, she worked for many years at Goldsmiths, University of London, including as Co-Head of its Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies. Zylinska is the author of nine books - most recently, The Perception Machine (MIT Press, 2023, open access available), AI Art: Machine Visions and Warped Dreams (Open Humanities Press, 2020, open access) and The End of Man: A Feminist Counterapocalypse(University of Minnesota Press, 2018, open access). Her work has been translated into Chinese, Czech, Korean, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. Zylinska combines her philosophical writings with image-based art practice and curatorial work. She has presented her work at many art and cultural institutions, e.g. Ars Electronica in Linz, CCCBarcelona, Centre Culturel International de Cerisy, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Serpentine Galleries in London, SESC Sao Paolo and Transmediale in Berlin.

Content Advisory

In keeping with the University at Buffalo’s commitment to academic freedom and artistic expression, the Speaker Series does not censor invited speakers or their presentations. The perspectives and content shared are those of the individual speakers and do not necessarily represent the views of the University at Buffalo.

Because this series highlights contemporary practices and critical issues in art and design, presentations may include imagery, language, or topics that are intended for adult audiences and could be sensitive or challenging. Examples may include references to violence, sexuality, identity, politics, mental health, or other difficult subjects. We believe artists and arts professionals can bring important perspectives to such topics and we wish to share a wide range of voices.