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24S Artist-in-Residence: Athena LaTocha

Please join the Studio Art Department in welcoming our 2024 spring term Artist-in-Residence, Athena LaTocha

  • abstract painting with dark colors

    Athena LaTocha
    Bulbancha (Green Silence), 2019
    Shellac ink, Mississippi River mud, Spanish moss on paper
    132 x 204 inches (335.3 x 518.2 cm)
    Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment
    Image courtesy of artist. Photo by Eric Waters

  • dark painting with sculptural element over the surface

    Athena LaTocha
    Ozark (Shelter in Place), 2018
    Sumi and shellac ink, earth from Pea Ridge on paper, and lead
    120 x 288 x 12 inches (304.8 x 731.5 x 30.5 cm)
    Image courtesy of artist. Photo by Edward C. Robison III

  • Gallery view of Athena LaTocha painting

    Athena LaTocha
    In the Wake of . . ., 2021
    Sumi and shellac ink, earth from The Green-Wood Cemetery, demolition sediment from downtown Brooklyn on paper, lead, sound (duration: 50 minutes)
    198 x 652 x 7 inches (503 x 1656.1 x 17.8 cm)
    Image courtesy of BRIC Arts. Photo by Sebastian Bach

Artist talk 5:00 - 6:00 pm on Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Loew Auditorium, Black Family Visual Arts Center
Opening reception to follow at 6:00 pm in the Jaffe-Friede Gallery, now relocated on the first floor of the Black Family Visual Arts Center.

Athena LaTocha (b. Anchorage, Alaska) creates massive works on paper exploring the relationship between human-made and natural worlds. The artist has incorporated materials such as ink, lead, earth, and burned wood, while responding to the storied and, at times, traumatic histories that are rooted in place. Her work is in the collections of institutions such as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND. LaTocha is the recipient of numerous awards, among them the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Visual Arts Grant (2024); Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2023); Rockefeller Brothers Fund Pocantico Art Prize in Visual Arts (2022); the National Academy Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (2021); Joan Mitchell Foundation (2019, 2016); Wave Hill (2018); and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (2013). The artist lives and works in New York.