Artist in Residence Lecture: Geetha Thurairajah

geetha thurairajah lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. thurairajah studied at Bard College, the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Rhode Island School of Design and Wilfrid Laurier University. Past exhibitions include ACID HAUS, Scherben, Berlin, 2024; The Buddha of Suburbia, King’s Leap, New York, 2023; At Land, Foxy Production, New York, 2022; nonplussed-(+), Jack Barrett, New York; Suspended Disbelief, Arsenal Contemporary Art, Toronto, both 2021; soothsay, Unit 17, Vancouver, 2020 & Centre Clark, Montréal, 2022; and Migration is more momentous than ancient invasion, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, 2019.

Over the last 41 years since its founding in 1982, the University of Tennessee’s Artist in Residence (AiR) Program has connected our students with a spectrum of over 80 professional artists engaged in contemporary painting and drawing practices from urban art centers like New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. One of the oldest such programs in the country, the AiRs have taught more than 3,000 our undergraduate and graduate students over its history, enriching the vitality of our program and directly enhancing its national ranking stature.

The AiR program is integral to the graduate student and undergraduate student experience in the School of Art and adds significantly to the vitality and vibrancy of our programs. Each semester an early- to mid-career artist is invited to join the School of Art community to work closely with 30 undergraduate students enrolled in junior-level drawing or painting and 8–15 graduate students. Each AiR brings a new and dynamic perspective to our program, challenges our students in different ways, and provides a unique model for what a career in the arts can be.