Launching the 2025-26 season of the Grunwald Gallery of Art at Indiana University’s Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, “Re:Visit | Celebrating a Decade of McKinney Visiting Artists” (September 5 – November 15) will toast the rich interchange that the school’s endowed visiting artist series has fostered between an international roster of creatives and IU Bloomington students, faculty, and the broader community.
“Re:Visit” debuts on Friday, September 5 with a panel discussion from 5 - 6 p.m. in the Fine Arts Building, Room 015 (1201 E. 7th St., Bloomington, Ind.) featuring three of the exhibiting artists: Cappy Counard, Yvonne Osei, and Martin Venezky. Immediately following the panel, visitors are invited upstairs to the Grunwald Gallery (Fine Arts 123) for an opening reception from 6 - 8 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.
Comprising a diversity of media, practices, and cultural contexts, “Re:Visit” will include works by eleven prominent international artists whose peregrinations have led to Bloomington in the past decade, thanks to the McKinney Visiting Artist Series.
Among them are Tetsuya Noda, considered one of Japan's most important and innovative living print artists; Lauren Fensterstock, who has reimagined her “celestial landscape” of crystals, jewels, and cut paper originally installed at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery for this new context; and Yvonne Osei, a US-based Ghanaian artist whose multi-disciplinary practice explores beauty, colorism, the politics of clothing and the impact of global trade and colonialism. Osei, who is the subject of a Kehinde Wiley portrait, has referred to herself as an “outdoor artist” who invites engagement from passersby when she exhibits or performs. She is represented by the Bruno David Gallery in Saint Louis.
Osei and fellow McKinney series veterans Counard and Venezky will discuss their practice, the contemporary art world, and the role of the university-based artist residency on Friday, September 5 at 5 pm. Venezky, an artist and designer known to explore the potential within salvaged materials and hand-based processes, has been on the faculty of RISD, CalArts, and California College of the Arts; and his work belongs to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He will be installing a new photographic work at the Grunwald Gallery during the prior week.
Counard, on the faculty of Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, makes jewelry and small sculpture from an eclectic mix of precious and distressed metals, gems, wood, and other organic materials. Her work, which “reflect[s] her curiosity about relationship,” has been featured in numerous exhibitions and publications and belongs to collections across the U.S.
“Re:Visit” will also feature works by David Hytone, Dakota Mace, Sunny A. Smith, Chelsea Thompto, Roos van Haaften, and Sunkoo Yuh, all of whom have visited IU Bloomington over the past decade as guests of the McKinney series. Displayed across the Grunwald's three galleries, “Re:Visit” will reveal the range of artistic practice nurtured through the series. The show will also include archived teaching and demonstration samples, underscoring the immersive and educational impact of this visiting artist program.
Since 2015, the McKinney Visiting Artist Series has connected IU students and faculty to leading figures in the visual arts who spend three days to six weeks in Bloomington. Every year, each of the ten areas of the Eskenazi School’s studio art program invites a working artist, curator, or other visual art professional to be part of the series. In addition, one artist whose home is outside the US is invited for an extended stay as the McKinney International Artist-in-Residence. While they are in Bloomington, McKinney visitors offer workshops, critiques, and one-on-one mentorship; engage in creative collaborations with students and faculty; and present a public lecture. A full listing of the artists the school has hosted through the McKinney series is available here.
The Eskenazi School is grateful to Dr. Meredith McKinney (B.A. ’65 and M.D. ’68) and Mrs. Elsa Luise Barthel McKinney (B.A. ’65) for their love of the arts and their generous support in endowing the McKinney Visiting Artist Series.
The Grunwald Gallery of Art in the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design presents contemporary works by professional and student artists in a special exhibition format. Exhibitions incorporate art from a variety of contemporary genres and approaches from experimental to traditional. The gallery is conceived as a visual art laboratory with artists participating in the installation of their works and interacting with students and the public as an integral part of gallery programming. The Grunwald Gallery frequently collaborates with artists, scientists, and scholars to produce exhibits that interpret visual art in a broader, interdisciplinary context.
The exhibition will be on view Tuesday through Sunday 12-4 p.m. until Saturday, November 15, 2025.
