Artists Kate Stewart and Ward Davenny explore aspects of image-making by examining physical, illusory, and poetic conventions of pictorial space. In this lecture, they will share insights on the commonalities between artists’ and architects’ relationships to space, whether illusory or habitable.
Kate Stewart received an M.F.A. from The University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Dickinson College. She lives and works in Pennsylvania and is a Professor of Art at West Chester University. Kate's work has been included in group exhibitions at the TATE Modern in London, Plug Projects in Kansas City, Arlington Arts Center in Virginia, Towson University Center for the Arts Gallery, Pageant Soloveev Gallery, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Her solo shows include P.S. 122, Vox Populi Gallery, Seraphin Gallery, Moore College of Art, West Chester University, Drexel University, Gettysburg College and Ejecta Projects. She has created public murals in collaboration with Sprocket Mural Works in Harrisburg, PA; with Arlington Cultural Affairs in Arlington, VA; and with Dickinson College's Goodyear Gallery and Organic Farm. She was selected for the annual Fleisher Wind Challenge Exhibition Series in 2005, was a Finalist for the PEW Artist Fellowship in 2008, and she received the Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art in 2015. Stewart has attended creative residencies at Vermont Studio Center, the 40th Street A.I.R. in Philadelphia, and was an Artist in Residence at the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation Exploratory Residency in 2019. Kate recently attended an artist residency at Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland, with full funding from a Research and Creative Activities grant through West Chester University.
Ward Davenny is Professor Emeritus at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, where he taught from 1992 through 2020. He previously held teaching positions at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the University of Connecticut at Storrs, among other institutions. He obtained his B.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1977, and his M.F.A. in printmaking/painting from Yale University in 1982.
His solo exhibitions in university, museum and commercial gallery settings include the Hawaii Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, Virginia Tech University, Connecticut College, Dominican University, the University of Long Island, Dickinson College, and the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. From 1982–2013, Davenny was represented by the Mary Ryan Gallery in New York City, and from 2015- 2020 by the Seraphin Gallery in Philadelphia, PA. The recipient of many juried exhibition awards, Davenny has also received numerous grants, including a Mid-Atlantic Council for the Arts Fellowship Grant, and two National Endowment for the Arts Individual Fellowship grants. His work is held in permanent collections that include The British Museum in London, the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Fogg Museum in Boston, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Honolulu Academy of Art, the Hawaii State Foundation for the Arts, the Yale University Art Gallery, the U.S. Department of State, and the curated collection of the Cleveland Clinic, among many others.
