Eckmann first joined the Museum as curator in 2000 and was named director and chief curator in 2005. The following year, with the establishment of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, she led the museum through its incorporation into the newly formed school and its move into new facilities.

During Eckmann’s tenure, the museum has undergone significant growth in size, visibility and impact, strengthening its role as a center of cultural and intellectual life both on campus, in St. Louis and beyond. She has curated numerous award-winning projects, including “Reality Bites: Making Avant-garde Art in Post-Wall Germany” (2007), for which she received the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation award for curatorial innovation. She was named the inaugural William T. Kemper Director and chief curator in 2010.

“By exploring art and its histories through many perspectives and in ever-new spatial arrangements, at the museum we strive to continuously educate ourselves, the WashU community and general audiences alike,” Eckmann said. “Our curatorial practice aims to center artworks that at their best are often counter proposals, rooted in the creative imagination and frequently alogical; they shape open-ended, complex and ambiguous platforms for engaging the human condition.

“Reflecting on these rich experiences, I feel very grateful to have had the opportunity to shape the Kemper Art Museum and its programs over the last two decades. I am deeply indebted to Dean Carmon Colangelo for his trust and energetic, collaborative leadership.”

Read more on the Sam Fox School website.

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Below are Popat’s prepared remarks to the graduates.

Good morning everyone. My name is Sejal Popat, and I’m graduating from the MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture program.

I am honored to be here and to have this chance to speak with you all on such an important day. I want to acknowledge the families, friends, mentors and loved ones who have helped us along this journey. I am especially grateful to my parents for their encouragement and love.

Before coming to illustration, I worked for several years as a software engineer in data
visualization. At the time, it was the perfect intersection of my interests in visual art,
communication and technology. I’ve always been driven by curiosity, and maybe even more specifically by an inability to let confusion go unresolved. For as long as I can remember, drawing has been one of the ways I make sense of things. When ideas feel too large or abstract, I try to bring them down to earth by diagramming and drawing.

When I first began to take drawing more seriously, I approached it like many of us do when learning a new skill. We usually want to know the right way to do things. We crave a kind of predictability in outcomes. In art, this often looks like striving for technical accuracy: perfect perspective, realistic rendering or exact likenesses. In other fields, it might look like striving to optimize a process for efficiency or increase productivity.

Those things do matter, but I began to grow out of this and find satisfaction in surprise. I realized that the work that felt most meaningful to me required some improvisation and the risk of failure. I began to see that dead-ends and frustration can be productive. My drawings were less about executing a fully formed plan and more about discovery through process. Sometimes I would begin with only a fragment of an idea and follow it without fully knowing where it would lead. And often, those uncertain beginnings produced work that felt more alive than anything I could have pre-planned.

I think there’s something important in that for all of us, especially now.

Graduation is a moment of change. It is a time when people are often asking us what’s next, and we feel pressure to have a clear idea of our future. But I suspect many of us are leaving here with a mix of feelings, ranging from excitement and relief to anxiety over uncertainty and a rapidly changing world. These moments of change and growth are not really about becoming more certain, but becoming more able to handle and embrace what is unknown.

Maybe part of becoming fully ourselves is learning how to remain curious even when we do not know the outcome. Learning how to tolerate ambiguity long enough for something unexpected to emerge.

That has been one of the most valuable lessons for me during my time here. I had switched from my job in software engineering to a program in illustration knowing that it would be a risk, but also that it aligned more closely with my own strengths and interests. We owe ourselves this kind of alignment and introspection about what we do best and what brings us fulfillment.

At a time when so much of life is mediated through systems that encourage speed and
reactivity, I think there is something deeply valuable about remaining present enough to make things thoughtfully, slowly and without guarantees of perfection. We can do this in many different ways, whether it’s through creating art, building tools with transparency and autonomy in mind, community organizing, teaching, researching or simply making space for another person’s perspective. When we act with these values in mind, we also remind ourselves that we are active participants in the world.

I feel most aware of my own agency when I am creating something and sharing it with others. It doesn’t matter if it is a painting, a story or a really good meal. What matters is the feeling of having some control, of building a skill and offering something that might shift another’s perspective. Creative work is radical in that it challenges you to imagine something other than that which exists. It is one among many ways of nurturing hope. Each day we are flooded with information that is too overwhelming for an individual to really process on their own. We need to feel a sense of being interdependent. To see others and be seen. For me, it is through art and writing.

I encourage you to think about this. What do you do to maintain a sense of agency and
interconnection? When we stay present, connected and curious about others, we cultivate relationships based on our own values. From here, something larger can grow. Communities, movements and friendships all begin with a few people choosing to acknowledge each other’s perspectives and challenges.

So as we all enter a new chapter in our lives, I hope we allow ourselves to keep evolving and to stay open to changing directions. I hope we resist the idea that we must already have the full picture figured out. Some of the most meaningful work and experiences begin as a wandering line. You follow it for a while without knowing exactly what it will become. Slowly — through patience, revision and time — something begins to take shape.

Thank you, and congratulations to the Class of 2026!

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Three WashU undergraduates are among 11 St. Louis-area students selected for the Gateway Foundation’s 2026 Gyo Obata Fellowship program. Named for the late architect and WashU alumnus Gyo Obata (1923-2022), the fellowships aim to nurture the next generation of arts administrators through paid 10-week summer internships with local cultural institutions.

Nitzia Y. Davalos Reyes, a senior design major with minors in architecture and creative practice for social change, all in the WashU Sam Fox School, will work with Counterpublic. She previously served as a community engagement intern with the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival and, at WashU, as a TRIO mentor with the Taylor Family Center for Student Success.

Ren Klein, a senior in film and media studies with a minor in linguistics in WashU Arts & Sciences, will work with the Saint Louis Art Fair. Klein has worked as a youth mentor at Venice Arts in Los Angeles, exhibited photographic work in both Los Angeles and St. Louis, and currently serves as a lead facilitator for St. Louis Contact Improv.

Carlos Madrid, a first-year student with majors in art history and archaeology and in Latin American studies, both in Arts & Sciences, will work with The Luminary. An Annika Rodriguez Scholar and a James E. McLeod Scholar, Madrid also is associated with the WashU student magazine Latinxpresión and has a minor in the Olin School’s Business of the Arts program.

In addition, José Garza, a 2013 Sam Fox School alumnus and museum academic programs coordinator for the Kemper Art Museum, will serve as one of 11 mentors to the 2026 cohort.

Founded in 1986, the Gateway Foundation seeks to enrich life and culture in the St. Louis area by supporting efforts to acquire, create or improve tangible and durable art and urban design. Read more about the Obata Fellowships on the foundation website.

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Grounded in creative expression

For her thesis project, Popat created an illustrated book set in a place called “Loser City.” A mix of paintings and digital illustrations, narrative story and free-floating scenes, the book is a physical manifestation of Popat’s passions and process.

“When I look back at the projects I’ve done here, it’s really clear to me that I am so interested in how people learn and think through the creative process,” said Popat, who is earning a master’s in fine arts in illustration and visual culture from the WashU Sam Fox School. “That is why this program has been perfect for me. It is one of the few programs that emphasizes not just illustration and visual skills, but how that translates into narrative and how you incorporate writing and even research.” 

Popat is an Ann W. and Spencer T. Olin-Chancellor’s Fellow and a Sam Fox Ambassadors Graduate Fellow. After graduation, she plans to return home to San Francisco and pursue a career in higher education. Ultimately, she would like to develop visual materials and strategies to support students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Popat approached her own reading challenges by breaking down dense text into sketches and diagrams. 

“There’s a lot of evidence that visuals like comics support literacy,” Popat said. “I would love to synthesize some of the strategies I’ve come to organically and over many years to help others who had a hard time when they were kids.” 

Before arriving at WashU, Popat earned an undergraduate degree in fine art and logic and computation from Carnegie Mellon University and a graduate degree in information systems at the University of California, Berkeley. She also worked as a software engineer for MIT Lincoln Laboratory. She loved those experiences for what they taught her about  language — how it evolves, shapes perceptions and is represented. But she never stopped painting and drawing. 

“My interests usually start with confusion or saying, ‘Wait, what? That doesn’t make sense,’” Popat reflected. “But what grounds me is creative expression. We all have a zone in our lives where we feel a mix of excitement and competence and peacefulness. For me, that’s art. It’s great being in a place where others feel the same way.”

For her Commencement speech, Popat will explore how creativity can foster agency as well as how curiosity can build empathy. Unlike the undergraduate speaker, who applies for the role, the graduate speaker is chosen by Vijay K. Ramani, senior vice provost for graduate education. Popat was surprised to be named and is, quite frankly, equal parts nervous and honored to speak before an audience of thousands. 

“I’ve been thinking about how important it is to nurture curiosity,” Popat said. “Being curious, not just about yourself, but other people and how they experience the world leads to empathy, which helps us feel part of the world.”

Supported and supporting

Eight years ago, Shaver’s counselor at Bayless High School told him to apply to the WashU College Prep Program for low-income students, so he did. But he had no plan to go to college. 

“College Prep changed all of that,” recalled Shaver, who grew up in south St. Louis County. “Living in the dorms, meeting college students doing really interesting things. That’s when I knew, ‘I want this.’”

Shaver received a full scholarship to attend WashU as a QuestBridge Scholar. Today, he is set to graduate from WashU with undergraduate degrees in political science and in educational studies from Arts & Sciences. During his tenure, Shaver has supported students of all ages on their educational journeys, just as he was supported by his College Prep mentors years ago. 

Shaver worked as a College Prep undergraduate program assistant, helping the next generation of high school students navigate the college application process and develop the skills they need to thrive on a college campus. As a Pershing Fellow, he taught kindergarten students at City Academy, a private elementary school in north St. Louis. And today, he is a tutor for the Prison Education Project at the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center, where he helps incarcerated men with their writing assignments. The wall of his classroom there boasts a painting of Brookings Hall, while the whiteboard celebrates WashU’s back-to-back women’s soccer championships. 

“They feel like WashU students because they are,” Shaver said. “They’re so engaged in what they’re studying. It’s phenomenal because they’re willing to talk about anything and everything. I feel like I had as many in-depth conversations there as I did on campus.” 

Shaver sees a little bit of himself in every student he serves. He, too, didn’t grow up with resources, but he did have people who believed in him. 

“Everyone deserves a second chance. Everyone deserves a chance, period,” said Shaver, who also has served as a youth basketball coach and a residential advisor. “And education is that pathway.”

Ultimately, Shaver wants to attend law school and pursue a career in public interest law or education law. He is part of the Yale Launchpad Scholar Program, a competitive fellowship that prepares prospective applicants for the LSAT and connects them to mentors and professional opportunities. 

Shaver will reflect on those experiences — the ones he received and the ones he offered — in his address to the Class of 2026. 

“I had never been on a plane before WashU, but I took my first trip abroad for my Ampersand Program (“Democracy and Myth in Ancient Greece”)“ and now I’ve been to 10 countries and more than 20 states,” Shaver said. “Luck and curiosity have given me that chance to know a life that wasn’t mine.”

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Vicki Match Suna, executive vice president and vice dean for real estate development and facilities at NYU Langone Health, has received the 2026 Dean’s Medal from the WashU Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

Suna (AB ’80, MArch ’82), leads strategic campus planning, design, construction, real estate, property management, facilities operations, food and nutrition services, and the art program across the organization’s 15 million-square-foot portfolio. A registered architect, she previously held roles at leading design firms and served on key New York City boards, including the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. She is a WashU trustee, chair of the Sam Fox School National Council and member of the university’s New York Regional Cabinet.

Suna was recognized during the Sam Fox School’s annual Awards for Distinction ceremony, held April 17 in Steinberg Hall. Also recognized during the ceremony were six other outstanding alumni:

Awards for Distinction
Balázs Bognár, AB ‘00
Stacy Bourne, MAUD ‘98
Lavar Munroe, MFA ‘13
Molly Needelman, BFA ‘08

Recent Alumni Award
Alexandra Mei, BDes ‘15
Rachel Youn, BFA ‘17

Presented annually, the Awards for Distinction recognizes alumni, friends and leaders in their fields for professional achievement in architecture, art and design and/or for service to their profession, the community or the Sam Fox School and WashU. Read more about the honorees on the Sam Fox School website.

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Established in 1926, the biennial Steedman Fellowship is organized by the College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design at the WashU Sam Fox School, in partnership with the American Institute of Architects St. Louis. The $100,000 prize, which supports research through international travel, is awarded on the basis of applicant proposals and open to anyone who has earned an accredited degree in architecture within the last eight years. It is among the largest and oldest such fellowships in the United States.

This year’s theme, “Collective Form/Forums” honors the legacy of celebrated architect, and former WashU professor, Fumihiko Maki (1928-2024) by taking inspiration from his text, “Investigations in Collective Form.” Neeraj Bhatia, the fellowship’s jury chair and 2026-27 Rome Prize winner, shared that the theme “asks us to reconsider the nature of the collective — how it is constituted, how it is spatialized, and architecture’s role in both convening publics and giving form to shared arrangements.”

“Catherine Chen’s proposal, ’Solar Communities: Architectures of the Energy Transition,’ situates the energy transition not simply as a technical problem, but as a spatial and political project,” Bhatia said. “By examining a series of energy communities, the research operates across scales — from material assemblies and building typologies to broader settlement patterns — foregrounding questions of governance, agency and collective ownership. Ultimately, it probes how emergent energy paradigms might reconfigure forms of collectivity and participation, and how architecture can act as a mediator within these shifting frameworks.”

Read more on the Sam Fox School website.

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Andrew Witt has been installed as the inaugural Kavita and Krishna Bharat Professor in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. The professorship includes a joint appointment at the WashU McKelvey School of Engineering. A lecture took place Feb. 26 in Steinberg Hall Auditorium, followed by a reception in the Kemper Art Museum.

Witt joined the WashU faculty Jan. 1. He leads university efforts in artificial intelligence (AI) and design, integrating emerging technologies into both academic and studio experiences and developing new courses and research frameworks that shape the future of design education and practice. He also is a core faculty member in architecture and in the Sam Fox School’s new Master of Design for Human-Computer Interaction and Emerging Technology, which welcomed its first cohort last fall.

Witt’s professorship was established with a gift from Kavita and Krishna Bharat and in conjunction with the McKelvey Challenge. Krishna is a distinguished research scientist at Google and founder of Google News. Kavita is a classically trained dancer and a former research associate at Stanford. The McKelvey Challenge, which encourages professorships that combine engineering with other disciplines, is a component of the engineering school naming gift from trustee Jim McKelvey Jr. (AB ’87, BS ’87) and his wife, Anna.

“Andrew Witt is an exceptional scholar, a thoughtful leader and a unique creative talent,” Chancellor Andrew D. Martin said. “As institutions of higher education work through both the promise and the challenges of new technologies, Andrew has the skills, experience and insight to help WashU navigate this critical moment. I’m delighted that he has joined our faculty, and I’m grateful to Kavita Thirumalai and Krishna Bharat for their generosity in support of this important scholarship.”

During his introduction, Carmon Colangelo, the Sam Fox School’s Ralph J. Nagel Dean and the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts, said that, in establishing the Bharat professorship, “we knew we were creating something entirely new, bridging design and engineering at the moment when AI is reshaping both.”

“Andrew is exactly the kind of thinker that this moment demands,” Colangelo continued. “His work sits at the rare and powerful intersection of architecture, mathematics, computation, artificial intelligence and software design.”

Aaron F. Bobick, dean and the James M. McKelvey Professor at McKelvey Engineering, thanked the Bharats for helping to establish a “truly forward-looking effort, one that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence and the power of the machine to elevate one of the most human tasks of all — and that is design.” Added Bobick: “It’s a great opportunity.”

‘Data, AI and panoramic imagination’

Witt’s installation address, “Data, AI and panoramic imagination,” explored and contrasted two differing ways of seeing the world: the panorama and the image matrix.

“The panorama is a unified view,” Witt said. He traced examples, from a 1528 woodcut of Vienna to 18th-century Irish painter Robert Barker to NASA’s famous 1968 “Earthrise” photo. The latter, Witt said, represented “a single panoramic data point that electrified humanity, activating a sense of collective destiny, not only between human nations, but with the Earth in totality.”

The image matrix, Witt continued, is more akin to a dataset: fragmentary, layered and stitched together. “And datasets are the language of intelligence today. To fully understand how to use them, we first must understand how to map, comprehend and bring them into the design process as a productive material.”

One extraordinary quality of AI systems, Witt pointed out, is their ability to detect patterns within complex, degraded and “noisy” datasets. “I would argue that this can help us recover what might seem beyond repair.” For example, rather than simply demolish outdated or damaged buildings, architects and builders might use AI to scan, analyze and develop reuse strategies for the constituent parts.

“Today, designers, artists and engineers must assemble knowledge as much as they assemble buildings,” Witt concluded. In so doing, they forge “new ways of seeing, creating and repairing.”

Watch the full ceremony here.

About Andrew Witt

Prior to joining WashU, Witt was on the faculty of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He was co-director of Harvard’s Master in Design Engineering and the founder and director of the school’s Geometry Lab, which explores the intersection of design and the science of shape and form.

Witt’s scholarship on design and technology is internationally known, and he is the recipient of fellowships and grants from MacDowell, the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the Graham Foundation, among others. He is the author of “Formulations: Architecture, Mathematics, Culture” (MIT Press) and “Light Harmonies: The Rhythmic Photographs of Heinrich Heidersberger” (Hatje Kantz). His current book project, “The Cyborg Home,” considers the history and future of autonomous and artificially intelligent houses. He also has authored dozens of book chapters and journal articles.

In 2014, Witt and designer Tobias Nolte co-founded Certain Measures, a studio that bridges physical and digital spaces, experiences and products. The studio’s work ranges from analyzing, sorting and repurposing construction waste in a project called Mine the Scrap — now in the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris — to developing models for reallocating water rights in the Colorado River with attention to political accountability and ecological impacts.

About Kavita Thirumalai and Krishna Bharat

Bharat is a technologist working at the intersection of computing and media. He is a distinguished research scientist at Google in Mountain View, Calif., and the founder of Google News. He started Google’s research division in 1999 and established the company’s engineering operations in India in 2004. Bharat holds a doctorate in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

Thirumalai has a master’s in public health, with a concentration in epidemiology, from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Until 2017, she was a research associate at the Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention at Stanford University. She is also a classically trained dancer in the Indian Bharatanatyam tradition and a curator of the Bay Area’s IDIA Dance Festival.

The couple’s connection to WashU began when their daughter, Meera Bharat, enrolled in the Sam Fox School to pursue a degree in architecture, which she earned in 2023. Krishna became interested in the impact of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, on both the teaching and practice of the design arts. Together, the couple saw an opportunity to help WashU become a leader in the conversation about AI and design.

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Kesler, a master of landscape architecture candidate at the WashU Sam Fox School, had been visiting family in Detroit. An hour before her plane touched down, an EF3 tornado ripped a milewide path through northern sections of St. Louis and St. Louis County.

“There was so much destruction,” Kesler remembered. “My car was totaled. My friend’s apartment was destroyed. The loss of trees was immense.”

As the city began its long recovery, Kesler — thanks to a summer internship with local firm Planning Design Studio (which volunteered its services) — began working with the municipal Forestry Division to take stock.

In this Q&A, Kesler, who also serves as a part-time coach with the WashU women’s soccer team, discusses mapping the damage, the beauty of repair and the need to work hard for one another.

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White succeeds Carmon Colangelo, the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts, who has led the Sam Fox School since its formation in 2006. Colangelo will conclude his deanship June 30, after 20 years.

“Charlie White has a long record of academic accomplishment,” Martin said. “His collaborative approach and commitment to fostering a culture of belonging make him ideally suited to guiding the next generation of artists, designers, innovators and thinkers. I am thrilled to welcome him to campus.”

Martin also expressed his gratitude for Colangelo’s long service. “Carmon has led the Sam Fox School through a period of extraordinary growth. Scholarships, professorships, academic programs and facilities — all have greatly expanded during his watch. His wisdom, energy and insight have created a remarkable legacy.”

As head of the CMU School of Art since 2016, White oversaw the transformation of faculty, facilities, curriculum and administrative structures to expand technologies, enhance access and broaden traditional forms of making — while also providing extraordinary opportunities for practical, digital and experimental learning.

Under his leadership, the school’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program built a new graduate studio facility, expanded its faculty and achieved a free, fully funded tuition model. Along with enhanced curricular and cultural growth, these advances led to the program being ranked #2 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report this spring.

“Charlie White brings to the deanship a rare combination of artistic distinction and academic leadership, along with a deep understanding of how art, architecture and design education can thrive within a leading research university,” Provost Mark D. West said. “His appreciation for the full breadth of the Sam Fox School — including the vital role of the Kemper Art Museum — will serve the school and our community exceptionally well in the years ahead.”

At CMU, White also led the rethinking of a new undergraduate curriculum and significantly bolstered the School of Art’s recruitment, recognition and cultural impact in Pittsburgh, across the nation and around the world. With Elizabeth Chodos, founder and director of the Institute for Contemporary Art Pittsburgh, White helped to envision and lead a successful capital campaign for the institute’s new building, which will open next year.

As a professor at USC’s Roski School of Art and Design from 2003 to 2016, White first developed and led a groundbreaking program in digital imaging, video and media theory and then directed the school’s lauded MFA program.

“It is a true honor to have the opportunity to lead the Sam Fox School,” White said. “As one of the preeminent art, architecture and design schools set within a leading R1 institution, and aligned with a world-renowned museum, Sam Fox is a truly unique cultural platform unlike anywhere else in the nation.

“Nowhere else can one find such a high-level intersection of contemporary art, architecture and institutional activity. From deeply committed forms of personal expression, to complex social and spatial problem solving, to vanguard exhibitions and programming, the Sam Fox School offers historic, current and speculative ideas in one broad space of learning.”

White was a fellow at the Yale Norfolk Summer Program in 1994 and earned a bachelor’s in fine arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York the following year. He earned an MFA from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., in 1998.

White’s photographs have been exhibited internationally, with solo shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LAXART, Locke Galerie in Berlin, Domus Artium in Salamanca, Spain, and the Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York, among others. His film work was screened at the Sundance Film Festival and at Director’s Fortnight in Cannes, France, and his popular work includes collaborations with fashion brands such as Adidas, Balenciaga and Diesel as well as music videos.

White’s work has been published in multiple monographs and covered in major publications, from Artforum and The New York Times to Frieze, The New Yorker and Wired. He has written and spoken widely on topics relating to contemporary photography, popular representation and art education.

“Bridging creative dichotomies over the arc of my career became invaluable to my understanding of arts education today,” White said. “It helped me grasp how myriad programs and career trajectories sit within the larger creative economy — and the cultural roles of idea making, problem solving and experimentation.”

White will reside in St. Louis along with his wife, poet and fiber artist Stephanie Ford, and their 14-year-old son.

About the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

A leader in architecture, art and design education, the Sam Fox School is committed to advancing those fields through innovative research and creative practice, excellence in teaching, a world-class university art museum and a deep commitment to addressing the social and environmental challenges of our time. Through the work of its students, faculty and alumni, the school strives to create a more just, sustainable, humane and beautiful world.

The Sam Fox School encompasses three primary units, each with a rich individual history. The College of Art, founded in 1879, was the first professional, university-affiliated art school in the United States. The College of Architecture, established in 1910, was among 10 founding members of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. The Kemper Art Museum dates to 1881 and was the first art museum west of the Mississippi River.

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An exhibition of work by Carmon Colangelo, the Ralph J. Nagel Dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, will open Friday, April 24, at Bruno David Gallery in Clayton.

“Carmon Colangelo: 20-Year Survey” spans two decades of work by Colangelo, an accomplished printmaker who also serves as WashU’s E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts. The exhibition, on view through June 27, coincides with the conclusion of Colangelo’s deanship, a role he has held since the Sam Fox School’s founding in 2006.

The survey traces the evolution of Colangelo’s distinctive visual language, which is grounded in layering, experimentation and sustained inquiry into the systems that shape perception and contemporary life. His practice moves between printmaking and painting, drawing on cartography, environmental imagery, anatomical diagrams and abstraction.

An early adopter of technology since his first Mac Plus computer in 1985, Colangelo also engages artificial intelligence models in some works, exploring the relationship between human and machine intelligence and ultimately reaffirming his commitment to the handmade. The resulting works unfold gradually, revealing layered networks of reference and meaning.

Read more on the Sam Fox School website.

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