• Tuesday, April 5th at 6:30pm
• Opalka Gallery, Sage College of Albany, 140 New Scotland Ave.
• FREE and open to the public
• 2015-16 Artist Lecture Series

Co-sponsored by the Department of Art + Design and Opalka Gallery, artist Ken Ragsdale will be visitng on Tuesday, April 5th at 6:30pm as the third speaker of the Spring 2016 Artist Lecture Series at Sage College of Albany.
Artist Ken Ragsdale makes work from memory, starting with sketches and building from there. From sketches come schematic drawings which are then cut by hand and folded into 3D objects that are dramatically lit and photographed. Through this process, he tries to capture fleeting moments remembered from his childhood out west.
He writes, "I look back at my life through the maze of my memories with nostalgia, but without sentimentality, in order to realize the uncertainty within the familiar. Every remembrance is a reinvention, and reality is not fixed, but in process."
A graduate of the UAlbany MFA program, Ragsdale is currently a lecturer at RPI. He shows at Front Room Gallery in Brooklyn and has been included in exhibitions around the country. In 2013, he co-curated, with Michael Oatman, An Armory Show at Opalka Gallery.
For more information about Ken's work, please visit: KenRagsdale.com

• Tuesday, March 1st at 6:30pm **Postponed until March 15th**
• Opalka Gallery, Sage College of Albany, 140 New Scotland Ave.
• FREE and open to the public
• 2015-16 Artist Lecture Series

Co-sponsored by the Department of Art + Design and Opalka Gallery, artist Kate Teale will be speaking about her work on Tuesday, March 1st March 15th at 6:30pm as part of the 2015-16 Artist Lecture Series at Sage College of Albany.
London-born, New York City-based artist Kate Teale's atmospheric paintings and large-scale drawings of waves, bedsheets, and windows will be on view at Opalka Gallery from January 26 through April 10, 2016. She works in oil, watercolor and graphite to create images that float between figuration and abstraction. Whether with smaller works on canvas or large-scale site-specific drawings, she mines imagery that swings from the private to public, specific to universal but all loaded with meaning.
Teale was educated at Oxford University and City and Guilds of London Art School before receiving her MFA from Hunter College/CUNY. Her first solo show in NYC was at Spring Gallery in 1996 and she’s since shown at AIR Gallery, Monya Rowe Gallery, Jim Kempner Fine Art, Kristen Frederickson Contemporary Art, the Richmond Center for the Visual Arts at Western Michigan University, and Hampden Gallery at UMass, Amherst among other places. She’s the recipient of a Painters and Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation and a NYFA Fellow. She’s also a writer, curator and founder of the Big&Small/Casual Gallery in Long Island City.

• Tuesday, February 2nd at 6:30pm
• Opalka Gallery, Sage College of Albany, 140 New Scotland Ave.
• FREE and open to the public
• 2015-16 Artist Lecture Series

The Nothing: Looking for True Character w/ Ira Marcks
Someone quotable once said "True character is defined by action." But what about all our unspoken hopes, dreams, and fears? Aren't those part of our character? Ira Marcks doesn't know. He's just a cartoonist. Join us for a night of conversation (and lots of drawings) about the weird paths we follow to uncover our own true character. There will be live musical accompaniment, a backwards Q and A, and many cute presentation slides to look at.
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Co-sponsored by the Department of Art + Design and Opalka Gallery, artist and author Ira Marcks will speak about his work on Tuesday, February 2nd at 6:30pm, launching the spring season of the 2015-16 Artist Lecture Series at Sage College of Albany.
Early illustration and comic art by Ira Marcks appeared in various national publications and comic anthologies. For a time, he had a serialized comic in the Hugo Award Winning sci-fi/fantasy magazine, Weird Tales. Branching out from traditional forms of cartoon narrative, his experimental illustration and music project dubbed an "illustrative score" received a thoughtful blog post by renowned comic theorist, Scott McCloud.
Ira has successfully Kickstarted two book projects; a graphic novel, Witch Knots, and an illustrated novel, The Aquarium Drift. Currently, Ira is working with his agent, pitching new projects including a follow-up novel to The Aquarium Drift and an art book called, Signs From Other Worlds, a collection of the hopes, fears, and weird ideas found in classic speculative and science fiction.
When he’s not writing, drawing or playing in his band, Ira is a freelance arts educator. He hosts youth workshops with a focus on visual storytelling using cartooning and graphic arts. He has collaborated with libraries, schools, museums, art centers, and other educational institutions across New York State. He has presented his classroom curriculum on blending art and science at the National Art Education Convention.
For more information about Ira Marcks please visit: IraMarcks.com

• Tuesday, December 8th at 6:30pm
• Opalka Gallery, Sage College of Albany, 140 New Scotland Ave.
• FREE and open to the public
• 2015-16 Artist Lecture Series

New media artist Fernando Orellana has collaborated with robots for over twenty years to make artwork. As a machine designer, a technologist, and a user, Orellana has blurred the line between himself and machine in the creative process.
Please visit FernandoOrellana.com to see more of Fernado's work.

• Tuesday, November 10th at 6:30pm
• Opalka Gallery, Sage College of Albany, 140 New Scotland Ave.
• FREE and open to the public
• 2015-16 Artist Lecture Series

Matt McElligott is the award-winning author and illustrator of fourteen books for children of all ages including the new Mad Scientist Academy series, Even Aliens Need Snacks, Even Monsters Need Haircuts, and the Benjamin Franklinstein series.
To see more of Matt's work, please visit: MatthewMcElligott.com

• Tuesday, October 6th at 6:30pm
• Opalka Gallery, Sage College of Albany, 140 New Scotland Ave.
• FREE and open to the public
• 2015-16 Artist Lecture Series

Virginia Durruty is an architect and art exhibition designer based in Boston. She designed the Opalka Gallery’s current exhibition, From Concept to Console: Art and Aesthetics in Video Game Design. Before starting as an independent consultant, she spent six years at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where she was responsible for the overall design concept and installation of temporary exhibitions.

• Thursday, April 30th at 6:30pm
• Opalka Gallery, Sage College of Albany, 140 New Scotland Ave.
• FREE and open to the public
• 2014-15 Artist Lecture Series

Image: Vices  Gouache on paper, 2015, 22 x 30"
Named in the The Huffington Post article* "10 Painters Who Are Changing Their Medium In The 21 Century" fine artist Jenny Kemp will conclude the 2014-15 Artist Lecture Series at Sage College of Albany, co-sponsored by Opalka Gallery and the Department of Art + Design.
Jenny Kemp received her BS in studio art from the University of Wisconsin—Madison and her MFA in painting from the University at Albany. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country. Most recently, her work has been featured in a two-person show at Middle Tennessee State University, The Painting Center in NYC and the Geoffery Young Gallery in Great Barrington, MA.
Kemp has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, Seattle’s City Arts, LUXE, The Times Union, Fabrik, and Apogee. Her work is also featured 100 Painters of Tomorrow, a project initiated by curator Kurt Beers (Beers Contemporary based in London) and published by Thames & Hudson. Jenny is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Middlebury College and serves on the board of directors at Collar Works, a non-profit art space in Troy, NY dedicated to supporting emerging and under-represented artists. Her work can be viewed at http://www.jennykemp.net/
*HUFF POST ARTS & CULTURE, Oct. 3, 2014 - http://huff.to/1A8ua4q