Project Based Residency

Project-Based Residencies
Mission Statement:

The goal of the Lawrence Art’s Center’s project-based residency is to help support, sustain, and foster artistic growth by providing material support for the development of special projects. With an emphasis on interdisciplinary and community-oriented work, the project-based residency strives to assist artists working in any discipline and generating works competitive on a national scale.

The duration of the project-based residency is flexible, spanning from 2 weeks to 3 months, during which time housing can be provided. Selected artists will receive up to $300.00 toward materials. Artists will have use of studio space at the Lawrence Arts Center during established times.

The Lawrence Arts Center is staffed with experts in each of our program fields, as well as arts professionals, and two annual artists-in-residence in printmaking and ceramics who can prove invaluable resources and energetic studio co-inhabitants for short-term residencies.

Upcoming: please check back for upcoming opportunities in 2021-2022.

Questions? Contact Director of Adult Visual Arts Education Kyla Strid at kyla@lawrenceartscenter.org

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]