The University Gallery is a contemporary art gallery that serves the Art & Design Department, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, as well as the city of Lowell and the greater Merrimack Valley Region. The gallery hosts 4-6 major exhibitions each year, including the biannual B.F.A. show featuring the senior projects from the Art & Design studios. From emerging artists to seasoned practitioners with national and international reputations, the University Gallery's exhibition program showcases a broad variety of artistic approaches, media and content reflecting the curricula of the Art & Design program and enhancing the cultural environment of the community and surrounding area.

The University Gallery is located on the first floor of Mahoney Hall at 870 Broadway Street, Lowell, Mass.

Gallery Exhibitions: Admission is free and opening receptions usually include a lecture by the curator or exhibiting artist.

Current Exhibit

Earth Oracles

Allison Maria Rodriguez

January 31 - March 22, 2024

Artist Talk with Conversation and Q&A
Thursday, February 8, 2024
3:30 - 5 p.m. in Coburn Hall Room 255 (Smith Ballroom, 2nd floor)
Reception follows 5 - 7 p.m. in the University Gallery in Mahoney Hall

Panel discussion with Professor Kirsten Swenson (Art History) and guests
Thursday, March 21, 2024
3:30 - 5 p.m. in Coburn Hall Room 255 (Smith Ballroom, 2nd floor)

Looking through window to see moonlight, lion and palm trees Image by Allison Maria Rodriguez - video still from Earth Oracles, a multi-channel immersive video installation.


The UMass Lowell Department of Art & Design is thrilled to present Earth Oracles, an immersive multimedia installation by Allison Maria Rodriguez.

Allison Maria Rodriguez’s video installations immerse the audience in experiential spaces that ask the viewer to consider alternative ways of relating to animals and the environment. While focusing on climate change and species extinction, Rodriguez's work transports visitors to a hallowed space inhabited by endangered animals, adorned with colorful, layered landscapes, existing gloriously in heightened and super saturated moving imagery. By transforming video monitors into stained glass windows and galleries into cathedral-like spaces, Rodriguez builds an alternative world where the animal kingdom is revered in all its beauty and mystery. In considering the possibilities for multi-species flourishing on Earth, Rodriguez reveals the wisdom that non-human species such as sharks, cougars, and dolphins offer to those who listen. In Earth Oracles, Rodriguez blends Indigenous perspectives with theory, technology, and compassion to create a moment that is simultaneously a celebration and a call to action.

Rodriguez’s work has been exhibited internationally, throughout the country, and extensively in the New England area, in both traditional and non-traditional art spaces. Her immersive and/or large-scale installations have been exhibited in venues such as the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Digital Arts Studios (Northern Ireland), Montserrat Gallery, Smack Mellon, Fitchburg Art Museum, Gallery 360 at Northeastern University, Emerson Contemporary, Milton Academy, Installation Space, Boston Cyberarts Gallery, Blockfort Gallery, Spoke Gallery, 13Forest Gallery, Fountain Street Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston Children’s Museum, and Dorchester Art Project, among others. Her projects also include several public art video installations commissioned by organizations such as Illuminus Boston, Boston Cyberarts, the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, and the Jewish Arts Collaborative.

Her work has been supported by grants from The Boston Foundation, Mass Cultural Council, The Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Red Bull Arts, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, CreateWell Fund, Boston Cultural Council, Arlington Cultural Council, Archie D. & Bertha H. Walker Foundation and Assets for Artists. Rodriguez is a Brother Thomas Fellow (2021) of The Boston Foundation, and has also been awarded an Earthwatch Communications Fellowship (2018) and the grand prize at the Creative Climate Awards (2017). In 2019 she was recognized by WBUR’s The ARTery as one of “The ARTery 25”, an inaugural celebration of 25 creatives of color impacting Boston’s arts and culture scene.

Rodriguez is currently the inaugural Artist-in-Residence for the Biology of Trauma Initiative at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She was also honored as the 2023 International Guest Artist-in-Residence at Digital Arts Studios in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Previously she has been a resident at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre (Manitoba), the Ragdale Foundation, the Dorchester Art Project (inaugural resident), Wassaic Project, Arts Letters & Numbers, and The Studios at MASS MoCA. Rodriguez received her MFA from Tufts University/The School of the Museum of Fine Arts and holds a BA in Language, Literature and Culture from Antioch College in OH, obtained also through study at Oxford University in England and Kyoto Seika University in Japan. She is also an independent curator and arts educator – she has taught courses in art theory and media production in a variety of contexts. Rodriguez has her studio at Midway Artist Studios in Boston, MA.

  • Mass Cultural Council logo

    The University Gallery is supported in part by a grant from the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.

    • Monday - Wednesday and Friday: 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
    • Thursday: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
    • Saturday: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
    • Appointments recommended, call 978-934-3494.

    Closed during school breaks.

    Please contact us for more information.

    The University Gallery is accessible to all. Gallery events are free and open to the public. Parking is available in the Wilder Metered Lot, located at the intersection of Wilder Street and Bachelder Street. The entrance to the lot is located on Bachelder Street. After 4 p.m. visitors may park in any open campus lot.

Past Exhibits

View University Gallery Past Exhibits