Huumannatuure Lab

Each year, the Van Every/Smith Galleries present an exhibition that highlights the work of one or more studio art faculty. This year, the Galleries will collaborate with Nichole van Beek, Visiting Assistant Professor of Art, on an evolving installation and meeting space centered on sustainable art materials and processes. Throughout September, van Beek will host several discussion sessions and workshops where participants will share ideas for building community climate resilience and rethinking our relationship to stuff.

Van Beek received a BFA from The Cooper Union in 1998 and an MFA from The University of California, Santa Barbara in 2007. She has exhibited work at Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson and NYC; Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA); Morgan Lehman Gallery, NYC; Interstitial, Seattle, W; White Flag Projects, St. Louis, MO; and Ortega y Gasset and Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Brooklyn, NY, among other venues. She has attended residencies at Vermont Studio Center (through a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation), Jentel Foundation, and Kingsbrae International Residency for the Arts. She was also the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in painting in 2012, and in 2011 she participated in Socrates Sculpture Park Emerging Artist Fellowship.

Since 2002, she has taught painting, drawing, photography, language, and research classes at Pratt Institute, SUNY Suffolk, Mt. Holyoke College, UCSB, and Hyogo International High School in Ashiya, Japan. As a Visiting Artist/Assistant Teaching Professor at Penn State University from 2019-2021, she developed a class called Climate Art and Action and was awarded a Faculty Research grant from the College of Arts and Architecture and GHG Mitigation Seed Grant from The Sustainability Institute to research biodegradable materials such as bio-based dyes, mycocomposites, kombucha leather, and bioplastics. Van Beek will join the faculty at Davidson College as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art for the 2021-2022 academic year.