Art News Archive | Art & Design

4/28/2022 Featured Story

Nancy L. Donahue Celebrates the Arts with $2 Million Gift

Nancy L. Donahue Celebrates the Arts with $2 Million Gift

This year, the Nancy L. Donahue Celebration of the Arts celebrated the Lowell philanthropist’s $2 million donation to renovate Durgin Concert Hall. It is only her latest gift to the university.

4/28/2022 Featured Story
4/6/2022 Featured Story

Professor Educates Children About Environment Through Art

Professor Educates Children About Environment Through Art

Art Assoc. Prof. Ingrid Hess is traveling to some of the world’s most beautiful places to make artwork that educates children about the natural world and environmental sustainability. She’s won grants, fellowships and artist residencies to visit national parks in Costa Rica, Australia, the U.S. and more.

4/6/2022 Featured Story
3/21/2022 Featured Story

'If These Walls Could Talk'

'If These Walls Could Talk'

Art Asst. Teaching Prof. Pavel Romaniko, who has roots in both countries, is divided by the war between Ukraine and Russia. Yet long before Russia invaded Ukraine, Romaniko was meditating on the diminishment of free artistic and political expression in Russia through his photographs of reconstructed, depopulated spaces.

3/21/2022 Featured Story
12/1/2021 Featured Story

Portuguese Photographer Documents Lowell’s Luso-American Community

Portuguese Photographer Documents Lowell’s Luso-American Community

Visiting Prof. Pedro Letria, a Portuguese photographer and writer, is teaching photography and documenting the Portuguese American community in Lowell for the university’s Portuguese American Digital Archive. His wife, journalist Cláudia Lobo, is also gathering oral histories for the archive.

12/1/2021 Featured Story
9/27/2021 Department News

New England Undergraduate National Portfolio Day at Tsongas Center 10/2

New England Undergraduate National Portfolio Day at Tsongas Center 10/2

The New England Undergraduate National Portfolio Day will be held on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021 from noon to 4 p.m., at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

9/27/2021 Department News
9/17/2021 Featured Story

New Digital Media Major Combines Storytelling and Technical Skills

New Digital Media Major Combines Storytelling and Technical Skills

The university’s new digital media major prepares students to become video, audio, corporate media and advertising professionals through classes that combine storytelling and technical skills. Students also get hands-on experience through internships.

9/17/2021 Featured Story
9/16/2021 Featured Story

Professor: Science Education Can Help Slow Climate Change

Professor: Science Education Can Help Slow Climate Change

Science education can help slow the pace of global warming, because people who understand climate science can make informed decisions, says Education Assoc. Prof. Jill Hendrickson Lohmeier. Lohmeier does research on using artwork in informal settings to educate the public about climate science.

9/16/2021 Featured Story
7/30/2021 Featured Story

Climate Change Lessons Reach Beyond the Science Classroom

Climate Change Lessons Reach Beyond the Science Classroom

“Integrating Climate Change into the K-12 Classroom,” a free professional development workshop hosted by EEAS Assoc. Teaching Prof. Lori Weeden and the university’s Climate Change Initiative, showed teachers how they can address the topic through a variety of educational lenses.

7/30/2021 Featured Story
6/4/2021 Featured Story

Political Science Major Recognized as One of ‘29 Who Shine’

Political Science Major Recognized as One of ‘29 Who Shine’

Her leadership on campus and advocacy for Black students won Fiona Bruce-Baiden recognition as one of “29 Who Shine,” an award given by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education to one student from each of the state’s public colleges and universities.

6/4/2021 Featured Story
12/18/2020 Featured Story

Honors Students Create Graphic Novels on Science and Medicine

Honors Students Create Graphic Novels on Science and Medicine

Honors College students are creating graphic novels about science and medicine in a new seminar. Assoc. Prof. of Art Karen Roehr says that during the COVID-19 pandemic, they’re more relevant than ever, because linking words and images helps people understand and relate to health and safety issues.

12/18/2020 Featured Story
10/20/2020 Featured Story

In Aftermath of Social Unrest, Graphic Design Student Takes Action and Inspires

In Aftermath of Social Unrest, Graphic Design Student Takes Action and Inspires

Like others around the world, Jason Reyes was horrified by the video of George Floyd being killed by Minneapolis police, as well as the Black lives lost before and after. He takes artistic action on a Lawrence street on Oct. 25.

10/20/2020 Featured Story
9/3/2020 Featured Story

Land as Art Lands Art Professor Burkhardt Fellowship

Land as Art Lands Art Professor Burkhardt Fellowship

Armed with a prestigious Burkhardt Fellowship, Assoc. Prof. of Art History Kirsten Swenson will spend the 2021-2022 school year researching and writing about a subject she calls an “obsession” – urban parks designed by artists.

9/3/2020 Featured Story
6/18/2020 Featured Story

Animation Program Draws Third-Place Ranking

Animation Program Draws Third-Place Ranking

For the first time, UMass Lowell’s animation program has cracked the top five among the state’s animation schools, ranking third in Massachusetts according to Animation Career Review’s 2020 listing.

6/18/2020 Featured Story
5/12/2020 Featured Story

Seniors Display the Art of Resilience

Seniors Display the Art of Resilience

The Art & Design Department transformed the opening of its annual end-of-the-year student art show into an online celebration for a class of 46 graduates whose last semester of college has been disrupted, but not defined, by the coronavirus pandemic.

5/12/2020 Featured Story
5/6/2020 Featured Story

Seniors Adapt Capstones to Online Learning

Seniors Adapt Capstones to Online Learning

With labs closed and all academic programs now online due to COVID-19, seniors are adapting their capstone projects. Some capstones have even taken on new relevance because they address aspects of the pandemic.

5/6/2020 Featured Story
3/20/2020 Featured Story

Going Stir-Crazy? Find an Antidote in the Arts

Going Stir-Crazy? Find an Antidote in the Arts

Going stir-crazy? Here are some suggestions from arts and humanities faculty on how to enrich and entertain yourself – all while staying safe.

3/20/2020 Featured Story
3/9/2020 Featured Story

Nina Coppens Watches Over O’Leary Now

Nina Coppens Watches Over O’Leary Now

A large gathering recently celebrated the unveiling of a student-painted portrait of late FAHSS Dean Nina Coppens. It is, say friends and family, exactly what she would have wanted.

3/9/2020 Featured Story
2/7/2020 Featured Story

UML Helps South Korean Students on Bold Mission

UML Helps South Korean Students on Bold Mission

Over two days, students from South Korea explored the worlds of virtual reality and 3D sculpting on their mission to Mars.

2/7/2020 Featured Story
1/29/2020 Featured Story

Local Ecologies Exhibition Offers a Cautionary River Story

Local Ecologies Exhibition Offers a Cautionary River Story

The Local Ecologies exhibit running now March 6 at Mahoney Gallery uses the Merrimack River to examine water and our relationship to it.

1/29/2020 Featured Story
11/8/2019 Featured Story

Exhibit Shows Art Fueled by Fear of the Future

Exhibit Shows Art Fueled by Fear of the Future

Artist Jonathan Monaghan paints a portrait of an increasingly angst-filled, technologically driven future.

11/8/2019 Featured Story
10/17/2019 Featured Story

Our 125 Years: Mergers, Murals and Modern Dance

Our 125 Years: Mergers, Murals and Modern Dance

Art historian, Assoc. Prof Marie Frank, talks about UML's first 125 years, what's changed and what has remained the same.

10/17/2019 Featured Story
9/25/2019 Featured Story

Chaos Theory: Students Conquer Lowell Kinetic Sculpture Race

Chaos Theory: Students Conquer Lowell Kinetic Sculpture Race

College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences students Jacqui Gallant, Sarah Galevi and John Fedirko competed as the Rowdy River Rovers in the fourth annual Lowell Kinetic Sculpture Race, a festive community event that merges the “STEAM” fields of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics.

9/25/2019 Featured Story
9/17/2019 Featured Story

A ‘River’ Runs Through Pulichino Tong

A ‘River’ Runs Through Pulichino Tong

Increasingly, student art is enlivening buildings across the UML campus. Recently, Andrew Fournier '19 saw his "River" installed int he Pulichino Tong Business Center,

9/17/2019 Featured Story
9/16/2019 Featured Story

New Program Provides Merit Scholarships for 20 Students from Washington, D.C.

New Program Provides Merit Scholarships for 20 Students from Washington, D.C.

Under a new partnership, 20 high school graduates from Washington, D.C., are studying at UMass Lowell this fall with merit scholarships. It’s part of the university’s mission to support students from all backgrounds in getting a great college education.

9/16/2019 Featured Story
9/9/2019 Featured Story

Cool Science Expands with $3 Million NSF Grant

Cool Science Expands with $3 Million NSF Grant

For seven years, the Cool Science contest has asked children to communicate climate science through art, with the winning works displayed on Lowell buses. A $3 million National Science Foundation grant will expand Cool Science in Massachusetts and add two metropolitan areas in the Midwest.

9/9/2019 Featured Story
9/6/2019 Featured Story

UML Connection Keeps Baseball Fans Smiling

UML Connection Keeps Baseball Fans Smiling

When liberal arts alum Erin Reynolds ’18, coordinator of creative services and entertainment for the Lowell Spinners minor league baseball team, needed a video production intern this summer, she turned to her former classmate, senior graphic design major Sara May.

9/6/2019 Featured Story
9/3/2019 Featured Story

Four Questions with Photographer Pavel Romaniko

Four Questions with Photographer Pavel Romaniko

Pavel Romaniko, visiting assistant professor in the Art & Design department, has been busy lately. In addition to welcoming a baby son, he also welcomed a $15,000 fellowship from the Mass Cultural Council.

9/3/2019 Featured Story
7/26/2019 Featured Story

Photo Class Pictures the Azores

Photo Class Pictures the Azores

Eleven students who comprised the Documentary Image photography class finished off last semester with a trip to the Azores.

7/26/2019 Featured Story
5/8/2019 Featured Story

UML Teams Up with Community on Southeast Asian Folktales Book

UML Teams Up with Community on Southeast Asian Folktales Book

Education, psychology and art faculty worked with community groups to collect folktales from four Southeast Asian countries and turn them into a book that can be used in the Lowell schools.

5/8/2019 Featured Story
4/24/2019 Featured Story

UML Celebrates Energy Savings, Sustainability on Earth Day

UML Celebrates Energy Savings, Sustainability on Earth Day

The university marked two major milestones at its Earth Day celebration: the completion of its $23.1 million Accelerated Energy Program and its latest STARS Gold rating, which moves UML into the top 10 nationally.

4/24/2019 Featured Story
4/5/2019 Featured Story

Students Help Create Home for Lowell Immigration History

Students Help Create Home for Lowell Immigration History

For four years, History Prof. Robert Forrant and Assistant Prof. Ingrid Hess of Art & Design have quietly charted the history of immigration in Lowell. With the help of a team of UML students , they have built a unique website to help teachers and students understand the waves of immigrants calling the city their new home.

4/5/2019 Featured Story
3/19/2019 Featured Story

Alum Draws on Past to Bring Advice to Art Students

Alum Draws on Past to Bring Advice to Art Students

Anna Dugan '13 returned to the Art & Design department recently to design in chalk and encourage current students to use all of their skills in the world beyond the university.

3/19/2019 Featured Story
2/20/2019 Featured Story

Psychology Prof Tackles Injustice in the Justice System

Psychology Prof Tackles Injustice in the Justice System

Asst. Prof. Miko Wilford has won a five-year, $498,000 National Science Foundation CAREER grant to study an urgent issue for the justice system: Why innocent suspects plead guilty.

2/20/2019 Featured Story
2/1/2019 Featured Story

404 Fest Humanizes Tech through Art

404 Fest Humanizes Tech through Art

In its first time in the U.S., the 404 International Festival of Art & Technology is at UMass Lowell University Gallery and other sites across campus, through March 5.

2/1/2019 Featured Story
1/31/2019 Lowell Sun In The News

Tech Brings Art to Life at UMass Fest

Tech Brings Art to Life at UMass Fest

Virtual reality, augmented reality, optical illusions and more are all on display at UMass Lowell through March 5 as part of the 404 International Festival of Art and Technology. This is the 16th annual installment of the festival, which originated in Argentina.

1/31/2019 Lowell Sun In The News
12/17/2018 Featured Story

Image is Everything at Climate Change Teach-In

Image is Everything at Climate Change Teach-In

The 2018 David Lustick Climate Change Teach-In, “Invisibilities: Seeing and Unseeing the Anthropocene,” explored how images can both shape and obscure our understanding of climate and environment. It was organized by Assoc. Prof. of Art History Kirsten Swenson as part of the IDEA Leadership Grant Initiative.

12/17/2018 Featured Story
12/6/2018 Featured Story

High School Art Prospects Get Gallery Showing

High School Art Prospects Get Gallery Showing

Sponsored by the Art & Design Department, the university’s first Regional High School Exhibition features 50 works by students from public and private high schools around the state.

12/6/2018 Featured Story
10/11/2018 Featured Story

Grant Bursts to Life in Acre Painting

Grant Bursts to Life in Acre Painting

Seven UMass Lowell students collaborated on a large mural, the latest stroke in a move to make a once-gritty and blighted alley into a green haven for art and poetry.

10/11/2018 Featured Story
10/5/2018 Featured Story

Exhibit Remembers More than a Hospital

Exhibit Remembers More than a Hospital

It was a hospital, yes. But Lowell’s St. Joseph’s Hospital was so much more to the nuns who worked there and to the residents of the Acre neighborhood. Now, two UMass Lowell students have created a tribute to the hospital, celebrating its singular value to its workers, patients and the neighborhood around it.

10/5/2018 Featured Story
7/27/2018 Featured Story

Fulbright Times Two for Art & Design

Fulbright Times Two for Art & Design

Assistant professors Ingrid Hess and Pouya Afshar, both four-year veterans of the UML faculty, have earned 2018 honors from the Fulbright Scholar Program, the cultural exchange program designed to improve intercultural and diplomatic relations across the globe.

7/27/2018 Featured Story
6/27/2018 Featured Story

The Games of Love

The Games of Love

Jordi Love and Thomas Nelson bonded over video and board games. They texted each other their romantic feelings. They worked with professors on a research animation. And now they’re planning to marry. Among their “children” will be their own video games.

6/27/2018 Featured Story
6/4/2018 Featured Story

To Plead or Not to Plead

To Plead or Not to Plead

Most arrests end in guilty pleas instead of trials, and research suggests that many innocent people plead guilty to escape the threat of a long prison sentence. A psychology professor has teamed up with an art professor to make plea bargains easier to research – and to change an unjust system.

6/4/2018 Featured Story
5/30/2018 Featured Story

Students Share the Message of Girl Power

Students Share the Message of Girl Power

Students in Regina Milan's Design in Motion class took their assignment outside the classroom to help Girls Inc. create videos that would appeal to donors.

5/30/2018 Featured Story
3/29/2018 Featured Story

Lowell by Design

Lowell by Design

What can graphics tell you about a city's history? A new exhibit focuses on design branding in Lowell – including UMass Lowell – over the years.

3/29/2018 Featured Story
2/26/2018 Featured Story

Students Get Hands-on Experience Creating, Exhibiting Art

Students Get Hands-on Experience Creating, Exhibiting Art

Concurrently, in four city galleries hang exhibits featuring work by UMass Lowell students, alumni and faculty.

2/26/2018 Featured Story
12/15/2017 Featured Story

Got an Issue? Sweat It Out!

Got an Issue? Sweat It Out!

With the sweat of more than their brow, a couple of UML professors lead a team looking to quell conflict with sauna diplomacy.

12/15/2017 Featured Story
11/22/2017 Featured Story

Student Art Installation Memorializes 58 Killed in Las Vegas Massacre

Student Art Installation Memorializes 58 Killed in Las Vegas Massacre

Ashley Brown's public art project may not have made its full run, but it had an impact.

11/22/2017 Featured Story
8/3/2017 Featured Story

Lawrence Students Write and Learn About History

Lawrence Students Write and Learn About History

University Prof. Robert Forrant helped launch a summer history and writing program for Lawrence students from third grade through middle school, with help from the Lawrence History Center, Andover Bread Loaf and a Creative Economy Grant from the UMass President’s Office.

8/3/2017 Featured Story
6/8/2017 Featured Story

Ellen Wetmore Earns Cultural Council Film Grant

Ellen Wetmore Earns Cultural Council Film Grant

Assoc. Prof. Ellen Wetmore, a veteran filmmaker and photographer, was one of just 18 Bay State artists to win a $12,000 grant.

6/8/2017 Featured Story
5/26/2017 Featured Story

Professors Create Program to Help Artists Build Business Skills

Professors Create Program to Help Artists Build Business Skills

Steve Tello and Ellen Wetmore hatch the Art-to-Work Incubator, a program designed to train artists in the practical side of making a living with art.

5/26/2017 Featured Story
4/25/2017 Featured Story

Student Employee of the Year Makes Lowell Her Canvas

Student Employee of the Year Makes Lowell Her Canvas

Student Employee of the Year Mary Connell, a sophomore art major from Princeton, helps promote all that Lowell has to offer through her work with the Community Relations office.

4/25/2017 Featured Story
4/18/2017 Featured Story

Fab Lab Melds Art and Graphics

Fab Lab Melds Art and Graphics

This spring, construction begins on a fabrication lab for the Art and Design Department in the basement of Dugan Hall.

4/18/2017 Featured Story
3/17/2017 Featured Story

New Honors Class Develops a Mindset for Adventure

New Honors Class Develops a Mindset for Adventure

Honors students are learning about the hero’s quest in a new film and literature class, A Call to Adventure, and preparing to become the heroes of their own adventurous lives.

3/17/2017 Featured Story
2/27/2017 Featured Story

Iranian Artist Issues Call to Activism

Iranian Artist Issues Call to Activism

The Iranian-born artist is a pioneer in new media who re-created what ISIS destroyed, saw the presidential travel ban up close and returned to the U.S. to reiterate the power of activist art.

2/27/2017 Featured Story
2/1/2017 Featured Story

New MPA Degree Offers Unique Track in Public Arts and Humanities

New MPA Degree Offers Unique Track in Public Arts and Humanities

The first students in UMass Lowell’s new Master of Public Administration program are getting a crash course in how to manage public and private agencies in the arts and humanities, criminal justice and human services.

2/1/2017 Featured Story
1/27/2017 Featured Story

Campus Hidden Gems

Campus Hidden Gems

UMass Lowell's campus is littered with hidden gems.

1/27/2017 Featured Story
10/24/2016 Featured Story

For FAHSS Majors, Your Career Starts Here

For FAHSS Majors, Your Career Starts Here

The Career & Co-op Center is targeting FAHSS majors with several innovative programs, including Employer-in-Residence days and a one-credit course on career preparation.

10/24/2016 Featured Story
10/14/2016 Featured Story

Michael Roundy Sets Sculpture in Motion

Michael Roundy Sets Sculpture in Motion

The debut of a race of kinetic sculptures from near and far was engineered by UMass Lowell lecturer Michael Roundy. It was a sloppy, kooky and colorful blast, and Roundy says you can count on it returning next fall.

10/14/2016 Featured Story
10/7/2016 Featured Story

Space is the Place for Art Major

Space is the Place for Art Major

John Cullen, a senior art major, is spending a chunk of his senior year at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston as a graphic design and video intern.

10/7/2016 Featured Story
6/29/2016 Featured Story

Three Projects Win Creative Economy Grants

Three Projects Win Creative Economy Grants

The Lowell campus has won three UMass Creative Economy grants that will fund educational projects on Southeast Asian folklore and immigrants, environmental history and animation.

6/29/2016 Featured Story
6/20/2016 Featured Story

Readers Hit the Books over Summer

Readers Hit the Books over Summer

More than two dozen people from across the campus community share what’s on their summer reading lists. Their responses run the gamut—with authors ranging from the Dalai Lama to Kurt Vonnegut and topics spanning quantum physics to dieting strategies, and everything in between.

6/20/2016 Featured Story
6/7/2016 Featured Story

Art Gets Personal for Assistant Professor

Art Gets Personal for Assistant Professor

Pouya Afshar, assistant professor of art and design, uses a series of animated stories featuring mythical Iranian hero Rostam to generate discussion about serious issues in Iran.

6/7/2016 Featured Story
6/6/2016 Featured Story

Acre Alley Reborn with Art, Poetry

Acre Alley Reborn with Art, Poetry

UMass Lowell is a partner in a dramatic transformation of a troubled alley whose five-year journey was celebrated with an opening June 2.

6/6/2016 Featured Story
5/25/2016 Featured Story

Art and Design Students Celebrate Big Unveiling

Art and Design Students Celebrate Big Unveiling

The work of seven Art and Design students has been selected to appear on an 80-foot multi-screen LED outside the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

5/25/2016 Featured Story
5/11/2016 Featured Story

Salute to the Class of 2016

Salute to the Class of 2016

As they prepare for commencement, some of our seniors reflect on how they found their place at UMass Lowell and what legacy they’d like to leave behind.

5/11/2016 Featured Story
4/21/2016 Lowell Sun In The News

Students' Videos Star in Art on the Marquee

Students' Videos Star in Art on the Marquee

Seven of the 10 student video installations featured in the latest Art on the Marquee exhibit at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center were created by UMass Lowell graphic design students.

4/21/2016 Lowell Sun In The News
3/11/2016 Featured Story

Art Students Have Designs on Greater Good

Art Students Have Designs on Greater Good

Visiting Lecturer Regina Milan’s Design in Motion students created 60-second fundraising motion graphics for Melmark, a school in Andover that treats severely autistic children and teens.

3/11/2016 Featured Story
2/24/2016 Featured Story

Art Students Drive Home Vision

Art Students Drive Home Vision

Art students created a mural commissioned by the owner of Drum Hill Ford in Lowell, who was so impressed with the end result, he committed to funding an annual Art Department scholarship.

2/24/2016 Featured Story
2/24/2016 Featured Story

Art Prof's Work Earns Fellowship

Art Prof's Work Earns Fellowship

Assoc. Prof. Stephen Mishol has once again been honored with a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship in recognition of his excellence in drawing.

2/24/2016 Featured Story
2/9/2016 Featured Story

Living-Learning Communities Help Students Find Their Niche

Living-Learning Communities Help Students Find Their Niche

Living-learning communities help students academically and socially, increasing retention and student success.

2/9/2016 Featured Story
2/2/2016 Featured Story

Student Wins MLK Award for Work with Girls Inc.

Student Wins MLK Award for Work with Girls Inc.

Distinguished Service Awards, presented at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dinner, go to students, faculty and staff dedicated to social change, service and community engagement.

2/2/2016 Featured Story
1/16/2016 Lowell Sun In The News

Artistic Showroom at Drum Hill Ford

Artistic Showroom at Drum Hill Ford

The recent renovation of Drum Hill Ford is not only giving prospective car buyers a pleasant car-buying experience, but it's also giving UMass Lowell fine arts students a great opportunity to strut their stuff.

1/16/2016 Lowell Sun In The News
1/11/2016 Featured Story

New Grad Degrees Focus on Arts, Management, Data Analysis

New Grad Degrees Focus on Arts, Management, Data Analysis

New graduate degrees combine specialized knowledge in humanities and sciences with business management, data analysis and leadership skills.

1/11/2016 Featured Story
7/17/2013 Featured Story

Art Students Get Interdisciplinary in Israel

Art Students Get Interdisciplinary in Israel

Art students visited the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, continuing a partnership between several of the school’s departments.

7/17/2013 Featured Story
5/24/2013 Featured Story

Faculty-Student Art Show Sets Inspiration in Motion

Faculty-Student Art Show Sets Inspiration in Motion

“Sound of Light” featuring work by lecturer Wael Kamal and students Duy Hoang and Lars-Erik Miller hints at the achievements ahead for the artists.

5/24/2013 Featured Story
3/14/2012 Featured Story

BAM! Comics Meet Literature at UMass Lowell

BAM! Comics Meet Literature at UMass Lowell

Established and emerging graphic novelists, three of whom visited campus for an artist talk with students, are featured in a show in the University Gallery.

3/14/2012 Featured Story
3/4/2011 Featured Story

Egyptian Art Exhibit

Egyptian Art Exhibit

The University Gallery is featuring a selection of contemporary artwork from Egypt. The exhibit resulted from a visit to Egypt by a UMass Lowell delegation led by Provost Ahmed Abdelal.

3/4/2011 Featured Story

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