Art division to host Los Angeles photographer, six different famend artists

At 5 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 21, the Department of Art, Design and Visual Studies will host its first in a lineup of seven Visiting Artists and Scholars for the 2026-2027 tutorial 12 months. Acclaimed Los Angeles-based photographer Rodrigo Valenzuela will give a free public speak about his work.

This 12 months’s wealthy lineup of artists and students — together with a photographer, sculptor, graphic designer, author, artwork critic, youngsters’s e book illustrator and painter — is feasible due to help from an nameless donor often called Ghost Host. They have generously offered the Visiting Artist and Scholar Program with three years of seed funding to convey these unimaginable artists to Boise.

In addition to their public speak, every artist will work carefully with Boise State artwork college students in workshops and classroom visits. This is very essential for younger artists to hook up with the broader artwork world. An alternative they might not have in the event that they don’t occur to reside in cosmopolitan cities like New York and Los Angeles, which the artwork world revolves round.

“Boise is a little bit of an island because we are so far away from a lot of cultural centers,” mentioned Professor Chad Erpelding, who oversees the Visiting Artist and Scholar Program. “This is a way to create a bridge where we’re able to bring world-class artists and scholars to campus.”

Visits from artists like Valenzuela are an opportunity for Boiseans to expertise the artwork tradition of a bigger metropolis. They additionally current a chance for college students to seek out inspiration, get critique from working artists and community of their future occupation. Experiences like this are essential for shaping Boise State college students into skilled artists.

“Being in the room is still critical to everybody’s careers,” Erpelding mentioned. “While we are connected digitally, there is still something incredibly powerful about those face-to-face meetings.”

About Valenzuela

Rodrigo Valenzuela is an internationally acclaimed photographer and recipient of Guggenheim Fellowship, a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, the Joan Mitchell Award and lots of different accolades. His work has appeared in current solo exhibitions on the New Museum in New York, the Lisa Kandlhofer Galerie in Vienna and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle.

Interested events can attend Valenzuela’s public speak free of charge at 5 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 21 within the Interactive Learning Center, Room 118. A reception will comply with the speak within the Center for the Visual Arts.