33rd Annual Berlind Symposium set for Oct. 26

Artists Adonna Khare, Mark Messersmith, and Shelley Reed will discuss their work during Randolph’s 33rd Annual Helen Clark Berlind Symposium.

The event, moderated by Tammi Hanawalt, curator of art at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming, will be held on Oct. 26 at 1 p.m. at the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College

It will also be live streamed on YouTube.

The daylong program is inspired by the College’s 113th Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Vita Wild: Contemporary Wildlife Art, which focuses on animals in the American wilderness and their intrinsic connection to the ecosystem.

Khare creates large-scale pieces—ranging from life-size to massive murals covering entire walls—using carbon pencil on paper. In 2012, she won the world’s largest art competition, ArtPrize, which attracts more than 1,500 artists from around the world.

She has one work, Bison and Bears, featured in the exhibition.

Messersmith, who has four works on display at the Maier, is renowned for his vivid and intricate paintings that also serve as a commentary on the ongoing battle for survival and habitat, not just among wildlife but also between humans and nature.

A professor emeritus of Florida State University, he has earned multiple accolades for his work, including four individual artist fellowships from the state of Florida, two Ford Foundation Fellowships, and the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation Award.

Reed, a 2023 MacDowell Fellow, has five works in the exhibition. Her haunting black and white paintings borrow visual fragments from predominantly 17th and 18th century still-life and genre paintings.

A former artist-in-residence at the Lux Art Institute, she is the past recipient of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ Maud Morgan Award, a Traveling Fellowship from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and two Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants.

Hanawalt, the moderator, has curated several exhibitions featuring wildlife art, including Valued Species: Animals in the Art of Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei, Bonheur and Beyond: Women in Wildlife Art, and Un/Natural Selections: Wildlife in Contemporary Art, which is currently on a national tour.

She serves on the Jackson Hole Public Task Force and is the Wyoming consulting curator for the New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024 exhibit at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.

The Berlind Symposium is held in conjunction with the College’s Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Art.

On the occasion of the 80th Annual, friends and family of Helen Clark Berlind ’58 established the symposium to honor her memory. Visit www.maiermuseum.org for more information.