Stuart B. and Barbara H. Padnos Student Gallery

The Stuart B. and Barbara H. Padnos Student Gallery is a unique venue on the Grand Valley State University Allendale Campus. Its primary function is to offer students opportunities to organize, execute, install and host exhibitions. In the recent past, students have organized, and installed various exhibitions and events for a variety of audiences. The Gallery space is regularly programmed with BFA thesis shows, exhibitions and showcased projects from individual classes. The Padnos Student Gallery also hosts the Guest Artist Program, providing learning opportunities for Students, Faculty & Staff with professional artists outside of a classroom context. 

Claire Ashely's Distant Viridian Crush exhibiton

Experience the Padnos Student Gallery Exhibitions

Visit the Stuart B. and Barbara H. Padnos Art & Design Student Gallery to experience the works on display this semester. The Gallery is located on the Lower Level of Calder Art Center, there are both stairs and an elevator for visitor access. 


Gallery Proposals Open: Fall 2024

Please fill this form out by the end of the day on April 5th, 2024 if you are interested in proposing something for the Padnos Gallery in the Fall of 2024. The form is designed to be easy to submit with but does ask for some support information to better understand what is being proposed. This form is open to all current VMA Students, Faculty & Staff. Alternatively, paper copies of the form are available as well at the VRC RM1409 CAC.

Padnos Student Gallery Proposal Form: Winter 2024

If you have questions but want to submit, there is a spot for those questions at the bottom. If you prefer to ask questions before submitting, or have issues with the submission process, please to reach out to the Gallery Director using the contact below. Proposals will be reviewed and accepted/declined soon after they are submitted so the gallery schedule can be created.
Dulcee Boehm
[email protected]
Curator of Visual Resources & Gallery Director

installation shot of Claire Ashely's Distant Viridian Crush

Guest Artist Program

Through the Stuart B. & Barbara H. Padnos Student Gallery Guest Artist Program within the Department of Visual & Media Arts, Students, Faculty & Staff are directly connected with professional artists. The program has included workshops, lectures, gallery visits and primarily a week-long campus visit by the Guest Artist as they install an exhibition of their artwork. These learning opportunities operate alongside but outside the classroom, and the reach of these opportunities intentionally extends outward beyond the university making connections within the state and region. All exhibitions are also open to the public.

Emmy Bright Guest Artist 2024

The Padnos Student Gallery hosted
Guest Artist Emmy Bright

January 8th-12th, 2024

Exhibition Essay

 

Her works across drawing, writing, print and performance. She loves paper, wool and the material that Carhartt pants are made of. Across all of these materials, Bright’s work investigates the problem of empathy and the problem of boundaries asking – How do we be there for each other? For ourselves? And where is this “there” we’re all talking about?  She looks to psychology, art history and comedy for help and also uses lots of lists and diagrams.

Click here to learn about Emmy Bright's work in a short video produced by VMA student James Kwiathowski a member of Curatorial Studio, Fall 2023.

Claire Ashley Guest Artist 2023

The Padnos Student Gallery hosted
Guest Artist Claire Ashley

January 12th- February 2nd, 2023

Exhibition Essay


"I work with inflatable sculpture as the surface for painting to live and breathe, becoming a tattooed skin of sorts on a kind of hybrid body. These sculptural paintings also become performance costume and once kinetic, lumber through the landscape on twelve sets of legs. I find the inflatable form compelling, as it exists in two states - both as flaccid skin and taught volume - metaphors for our bodily processes: inhaling/exhaling; taught/wrinkled skin; flaccid/erect organs etc.

As a feminist artist I am trying to take up as much space as possible and be as loud and obnoxious as I can in the world. I want to compete with the macho male sculptors of art history, but in a way that is soft, squishy, and playful rather than hard, severe, and unforgiving."

Brightly colored ball shaped sculpture being installed by group of students & artist Claire Ashley.
Brightly colored neon art installation in white-walled space.
Brightly colored neon art installation in white-walled space.
Brightly colored neon art installation in white-walled space.
Students working to hang an image-based ceramic artwork with guest artist Emmy Bright.
Students working to hang an image-based ceramic artwork with guest artist Emmy Bright.
Visitors to the Padnos Gallery standing on an art installation by Emmy Bright, made up of wool rugs drawn on by a printmaking process to look like lines.
Visitor to the Padnos Gallery standing on an art installation by Emmy Bright, made up of wool rugs drawn on by a printmaking process to look like lines.

Student Exhibitions

Students & Faculty regularly host exhibitions throughout the year focusing on coursework & student thesis works. 

BFA opening where people are gathered in a gallery looking at artworks.
Artwork from a BFA exhibition including larger scale print-based works.
Brightly colored clothing BFA Graphic Design displays within the Padnos Student Gallery.

Other Campus Galleries


Department of Visual & Media Arts BFA Exhibition titled "Enhance" included Graphic Design Student work & Photography Student work.

Grand Valley State University Art Gallery

The GVSU Art Gallery organizes and maintains an active exhibition schedule in six different gallery spaces across two campuses. In addition, it is the venue for several BFA thesis shows every semester. The gallery staff also oversees GVSU's extensive art collection which includes over 5000 works. It features a wide range of media by nationally and internationally recognized artists, faculty, alumni, and many Michigan-based visual artists. These are on view in buildings throughout the Allendale, Grand Rapids, Holland, Muskegon, and Traverse City campuses.

Grand Valley State University Art Gallery
https://www.gvsu.edu/artgallery/

 

 

Portal Spaces showing white and translucent swirly artworks

Portal Spaces

In addition to formal galleries, the Department of Visual and Media Arts includes other areas to showcase student work. Faculty use these spaces, on a rotating basis, to display projects from a single class or to highlight student portfolios.

 

 


Padnos Student Gallery Forms and Information

 

 

 

MAEA Image Studio Exhibition showing people in the gallery space and brightly colored projections

Gallery Director Information

Renee Zettle-Sterling portrait

For questions about Gallery Exhibitions, please contact:

Curator of Visual Resources Dulcee Boehm 
Gallery Director
Calder Arts Center
(616) 331-3486
[email protected]

 

 




Page last modified March 1, 2024