We are incredibly proud of all our alum at the Department of Art. Here are this week’s highlights of two alum who have received notable recognition and appreciation for their artistic contributions. Both Joanna Keane Lopez and Eric Paul Riege have received significant recognition for their work.
Joanna Keane Lopez graduated from UNM with her BFA in Studio Arts and went on to get her MFA in Art Practices at Stanford University. She is a multi-disciplinary artist working at the intersection of sculpture, photography, site-specific installation, and vernacular craft traditions of America. Recently, her work has been shown in the current Site SF International. In her piece, she used Spanish colonial colcha stitching on her handmade bed cover, depicting the mushroom cloud from the detonation of the first atomic bomb at the Trinity site. Joanna was also featured in a New York Times write up titled “The Southwest City That Turned Itself Into an Essential Art Outpost.
Eric-Paul Riege graduated with his BFA in Studio Art and Ecology with a minor in Navajo Language and Linguistics from UNM. He works in woven sculpture, installation, and performance. He celebrates the ancestral stories in weaving, language, and adornment passed down from his maternal family. The Joan Mitchell Fellowship was established in 2021, re-envisioning the Foundation’s previous grant programs through a multi-year commitment. The fellowship recognized and supported 15 US-based artists working in the evolving fields of painting and sculpture. The Fellowship structure provides critical resources that artists need to sustain their practices.
Congrats to both Joanna Keane Lopez and Eric-Paul Riege! We are grateful for your time here in our department and look forward to what is to come.
ADDITONAL RESOURCES
READ MORE about the NY Times write-up at https://bit.ly/nytimesjoannakeane
LEARN MORE about Site SF International at www.sitesantafe.org/en/once-within-a-time/
LEARN MORE about the Joan Mitchell Fellowship at www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/joan-mitchell-fellowship
EXPLORE the work of Joanna Keane Lopez by checking out her website joannakeanelopez.com or following on Instagram @jokeanelopez.
EXPLORE the work of Eric-Paul Riege by checking out his website at ericpaulriege.com or following on Instagram @ericpaulriege.
We’re thrilled to welcome three extraordinary artists and educators to the Department of Art!
Rambod Vala is a multidisciplinary artist, graphic designer, and educator whose work spans graphic and moving images. His practice integrates video, installation, typography, storytelling, and layered narrative structures interweaving realism and fantasy, politics and romance, skepticism and belief.
“Signal & Trace” highlights artworks at the intersection of human experience and technological mediation, engaging with systems of surveillance, autonomy, memory, and identity.
MFA student Luc Biscan-White and alum Miguel Lastra were selected to attend SOMA Summer 2025, an intensive program for artists in Mexico City.
