Artists in Residence Archive - Lawrence Arts Center

Tonja Torgerson
2021 Project-Based Artist in Residence

Tonja Torgerson is an artist, printmaking and professor currently working at Indiana University. Torgerson received her BFA from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Printmaking at Syracuse University. Her artwork is regularly exhibited nationally and internationally; and is included in private and museum collections, including the Weisman Art Museum and the Minnesota Museum of American Art. Her work deals with illness, death, and the impermanent nature of the body.

Tonja Torgerson was the Lawrence Arts Center 2014/15 Printmaking Artist in Residence and Print Studio Manager from 2016 until 2018.

Succumb | on exhibit June 2021

Reflections on vulnerability, death, and the impermanence of the body. Torgerson uses prints, cut paper, and collage to create a fallen Garden of Eden in which life-size figures grapple with the recognition of their mortality. These works provide an intimate pause in which to consider the frailty of the body; allowing us to dwell on uncomfortable truths.

Ruben Castillo
2021 Project-Based Artist in Residence

Ruben Bryan Castillo is a visual artist and educator born in Dallas and currently working in Kansas City, MO. His work investigates themes of intimacy, queerness, place, and the body using a range of media including print, drawing, sculpture/installation, and video. He currently teaches printmaking and drawing at the Kansas City Art Institute and Johnson County Community College.

One Week from Spring | on exhibit July 2021

One Week from Spring explores memory, records, observation, and narratives around what author Kathleen Stewart calls “ordinary affects” through the production of a new suite of intaglio prints and drawings. The imagery will circulate around softness and domestic intimacy to produce a space addressing collective desire and connection.

Abigail Smithson
2020 Project-Based Artist in Residence

Abigail Smithson is a multi-media artist based in Tucson, Arizona. Born and raised in the Bay Area of California, she received her Bachelor of Arts with a minor in history … [more]

Ashlyn Pope
2019/21 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Ashlyn Pope is an African American sculptor of Gullah descent. She holds a BFA in Ceramics and Printmaking from Kennesaw State University. She recently graduated with her MFA in Ceramics from Pennsylvania State University. Ashlyn is inspired to serve in her community as a champion for diversity. She does so by serving on the board for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts as a Student Director at Large. Ashlyn mainly works with ceramics and textiles to create work rooted in personal experiences as a survivor of abuse living in a female Black body. The American system is one of constriction, for her body and for those who look like her. Ashlyn’s work is born of that nature. Through her eyes, spaces are both restricting and binding, yet they also contain hope, strength, and power. Ashlyn uses her work to address how bound or boundless we are.

Dayon Royster
2019/21 Printmaking Artist in Residence

Dayon Royster is an artist hailing from Richmond, VA. He received his BFA in Printmaking from East Carolina University and an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Iowa. While at ECU, he embarked on his first foray into printmaking with no idea of the path down which it would send him. Printmaking continues to captivate him because of the creative problem solving that is involved with the process; he returns day after day to try his hand at pulling a successful print. Dayon’s current work conjures universal themes of accessibility, curiosity, empowerment, self-doubt, identity, suppression, symbolism, and the “other.”

Matthew Lord | The Elevator Project
2019 Project-Based Artist in Residence

Matthew Lord graduated with a BFA in illustration from the University of Kansas and is an illustrator and fine artist. His career milestones include several solo and group exhibitions, in … [more]

Danielle C. Wyckoff
2018 Project-Based Artist in Residence

Danielle C. Wyckoff combines her backgrounds in literature, technical theatre, and visual art to create installations, works on paper, and performative and participatory artworks. With the Lawrence Art Center, she … [more]

TUG Collective | Gaelyn and Gustavo Aguilar
2018 Project-Based Artist in Residence

Gaelyn and Gustavo Aguilar (TUG Collective) will use their time and resources at the Lawrence Arts Center to design and printEthnographic Contrafacta, a collection of short essays/poems and graphic sound … [more]

Nate Ditzler
2018/19 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Nate Ditzler grew up on the island of O´ahu, Hawai´i. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Hawai´i at … [more]

Johanna Winters
2018/19 Printmaking Artist in Residence

Johanna Winters hails from Minneapolis, MN where she served as the Education and Community Programs Manager at Highpoint Center for Printmaking. Johanna received her MFA from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, … [more]

Maura Garcia
2017 Project-Based Artist in Residence

Dancer/choreographer Maura Garcia collaborates within communities to create stories of identity and place. She is fascinated by stories that have been hidden and the unexpected connections that arise when they are rediscovered. … [more]

Kevin Benham
2017 Project-Based Artist in Residence

Kevin Benham is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture in the School of Design at South Dakota State University. He received his MLA from the Graduate School of Design at … [more]

Shiyuan Xu
2017/18 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Shiyuan Xu is originally from Hangzhou, P.R. China and has an MFA in ceramics from Arizona State University. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Shiyuan is a 2017 Ceramics … [more]

Michael Benedetti
2017/18 Printmaking Artist in Residence

Michael Benedetti is originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and he has an MFA in printmaking from the University of Georgia. Michael has been awarded multiple residencies, including a residency in Ghent … [more]

Tressa Jones
2016/17 Printmaking Artist in Residence

Tressa Jones, artist and printmaker, was born and raised in the Greater Boston Area. After studying fine art and printmaking in Boston, and then in New Mexico she relocated to … [more]

Carly Slade
2016/17 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Carly Slade is a Canadian artist who grew up in “Big sky Alberta” and spent her working life in the trades. From carpentry to concrete, she is most at home … [more]

Amanda Maciuba
2015/16 Printmaking Artist in Residence

A native of the Buffalo, NY, Amanda Maciuba graduated from the University at Buffalo in 2009 with a degree in Visual Studies and a concentration in Print Media. Amanda completed … [more]

Christy Wittmer
2015/16 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Christy Wittmer received a BFA in painting and sculpture from Miami University. She has studied ceramics at San Diego City College and The Ohio State University and earned her MFA … [more]

Eleanor Goudie-Averill
2015/16 Dance Education Artist in Residence

Eleanor Goudie-Averill is currently the Associate Director of Dance at the Lawrence Arts Center and a professor of Modern I-III at the University of Kansas. She initially returned to Kansas … [more]

Gunyoung Kim
2014/15 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Gunyoung Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea. She received her BFA from Kook-Min University in Korea in 2010 and came to the United States to pursue an MFA in … [more]

Tonja Torgerson
2014/15 Printmaking Artist in Residence

Tonja Torgerson has her M.F.A. in Printmaking from Syracuse University and B.F.A. in Studio Arts, with a minor in Art History, from the University of Minnesota. She was the 2014/15 … [more]

Valerie Campos
2014 Artist in Residence

Valerie Campos, originally from Mexico City, spent her early years in Los Angeles where street art and culture influenced her aesthetic. At age 22, she began teaching herself how to … [more]

Aaron Hughes
2014 Project-Based Artist in Residence

The Tea Project A short term residency and installation providing uncommon perspective on politics, art, and Guantanamo Bay detainees. Artist Aaron Hughes began the Tea Project as a response to … [more]

Kyla Strid
2013/14 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Kyla Strid has a BFA in Ceramics from the University of Alaska Anchorage and an MFA from Ohio University. She worked as a technician for Easy Ceramic Decals and in … [more]

John McCaughey
2013/14 Printmaking Artist in Residence

John McCaughey holds a BFA in printmaking from Rhode Island College and his MFA in printmaking from Ohio State University. John is interested in knowing more about the things people frequently … [more]

Monika Laskowska
2012/13 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Monika Laskowska was born in Bydgoszcz, Poland. She earned her MFA from The Ohio State University and BFA in Ceramics from the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology in Galway, Ireland. Laskowska … [more]

Patrick Vincent
2012/13 Printmaking Artist in Residence

Patrick Vincent received his B.F.A. from the University of Minnesota and his M.F.A. in printmaking from Arizona State University. He has worked for the design/letterpress workspace Studio on Fire, the … [more]

Kristi Arnold
2012 Project-Based Artist in Residence

Kristi Arnold received her B.F.A. in painting from the University of Kansas in 2001. In 2005, she earned her MFA in painting and printmaking from The University of Connecticut. She … [more]

Allen Chen
2011/12 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Allen Chen was born in 1979 in Taiwan and immigrated to California in 1991. He received his BFA in Spatial Arts from San Jose State University in 2005 and MFA … [more]

Carla Aspenberg
2011/12 Printmaking Artist in Residence

Carla Aspenberg, printmaker and sculptor, was born in 1980 in New York City. She received an MFA in Sculpture from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in … [more]

Willy Chyr
2011 Project-Based Artist in Residence

Willy Chyr is interested in generative art, storytelling, and the intersection between art and science. He holds a BA degree in physics and economics from the University of Chicago. While … [more]

Akiko Jackson
2010/11 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Akiko Jackson holds an MFA (2009) from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MA (2006) from California State University Northridge. Jackson has been the recipient of multiple awards and artist residencies including the … [more]

Nicolette Ross
2010/11 Printmaking Artist in Residence

Nicolette Ross holds a BFA in Printmaking and Book Arts from the University of Central Florida, and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts from Washington University in St. Louis. Her … [more]

Aaron Storck
2010 Project-Based Artist in Residence

The Lawrence Arts Center has awarded its first Project-based Residency to Lawrence artist, Aaron Storck. The goal of this new program, funded in part by a grant from the Lawrence Cultural … [more]

Sarah Gross
2009/10 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Sarah was born and raised in New York City and has done artist residencies at the Greenwich House Pottery in New York, the Lawrence Arts Center in Kansas, and Grand … [more]

Alison Filley
2009/10 Printmaking Artist in Residence

Alison Filley is currently the Coordinator of Studios and Outreach at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, IA. She received her MFA from the University of Iowa and her BFA from … [more]

Hak Kyun Kim
2008/09 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Hak Kyun Kim is originally from Seoul, South Korea. He studied ceramics at Seoul National University of Technology and went on to receive his MFA from the University of Montana … [more]

Donika Wiley
2008/09 Printmaking Artist in Residence

Donika Wiley received her BFA in Sculpture with Honors from the University of Kansas. Donika’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work was also featured in “New American … [more]

Jennifer Holt
2007/08 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Jennifer Holt’s porcelain, mixed media sculpture and installation art revolves around concepts of time, place, and memory. She has been an artist in residence at the Archie Bray Foundation for … [more]

Brian Stuparyk
2007/08 Printmaking Artist in Residence

Brian Stuparyk is the founder of Steam Whistle Letterpress in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has been collecting and restoring letterpress equipment since buying his first press in 2000. Originally from Grande … [more]

Taryn McMahon
2006/07 Printmaking Artist in Residence

Taryn McMahon received her BFA from The Pennsylvania State University, and an MA and MFA from the University of Iowa. She has received numerous awards for her work including the … [more]

Jessica Conner
2006/07 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Jessica Conner came directly to the Lawrence Arts Center from Fort Hays State University after earning her MFA in 2006. She is a Western Kansas native growing up on her … [more]

Stacy Barnes
2005/06 Ceramics Artist in Residence

Stacy Barnes is originally from Greensburg, Kansas. After she received a BFA in ceramics from Kansas State University, she was awarded the first year-long residency at the Lawrence Arts Center. … [more]