January 30 – April 13, 2025
Opening lecture and reception: Thursday, February 27, 6pm
Photographer and lens-based multimedia artist Rita Koehler investigates how political, economic, and religious structures are used to control others in defense of misogyny, racism, and bigotry. She scrutinizes contemporary American social structures to investigate what constitutes an intelligible life. For her series Glitch Mommy: Forty Days and Forty Nights, Koehler follows the fragments of adoption disruption into a world of fairytale where lyrical gestures of staining and fluid mark-making bring about the discovery of fantastical landscapes that tilt the field towards a new era.
Koehler earned her B.A. in Psychology and Theology from Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, IN, and her M.F.A. in Visual Studies from Lesley University College of Art and Design, Cambridge, MA. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and is in the permanent collection of the Kinsey Institute Gallery.
The Frances Niederer Artist-in-Residence program allows Hollins University to bring a nationally recognized artist to campus every year. In residence during the spring semester, the Artist-in-Residence creates work in a campus studio and teaches a seminar open to all students.