Art@McIntire

Isabelle Abbot is a Charlottesville-based painter who received her B.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of Virginia in 2005 and her M.F.A. in Painting from the University of North Carolina Greensboro in 2011. In 2011, Abbot returned to Virginia to teach as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Virginia through 2013. About her creative practice, she writes:

“Every painting is a series of questions I pose to myself, about the landscape, about my relationship to my environment, about the specificities of where I am. How does this moment feel? How does the atmosphere, the topography, the light affect me? How can I communicate these sensations honestly and clearly? The answers come through editing, through paring down and cutting out extraneous detail to discover what is essential about a place. I am a painter of a very specific region, and I want my viewers to feel instinctively where these paintings come from. As a Virginia native and a graduate of the University of Virginia, I find the Piedmont region at the foot of the Blue Ridge integral to my identity. The shapes of the land, the colors of the mountains, the way the weather shifts the light are all deeply connected to all my memories and root me in who I am as an artist and a person. I am paying homage, as well as feeding my own need to be oriented, to be grounded, to know where I am and to feel connected to that place.”

Janet Bruce is a Virginia-based artist who received her B.A. in studio art from Amherst College, where she studied with Abstract Expressionist Grace Hartigan, and also studied at the Art Institute of Boston and the Corcoran in Washington, DC. About her series of large-scale oil paintings in Shumway Hall, the artist writes: 

"This site-specific installation is conceived as an invitation to a voyage for the guests of the McIntire community. It was inspired by the curving and light-filled Crescent Corridor of Shumway Hall. The title, Immrama, is of Gaelic origin and refers to Irish tales of heroes journeying to the Otherworld by sea. Such voyages through the unknown are similar in some ways to the passages of students through college—a time of adventure and change that leads to deeper understanding and purpose.

Anchored in blue, my palette evokes clouds, atmosphere, water, and place. Color changes from one canvas to the next, as if reflecting a transitory state of light, as well as a state of being. Using oil paint and viscous materials, I juxtapose washes with layers or forms lurking beneath to create textural effects that alternate between opacities and fluidities. My technique is expressed gesturally. The signs of my work are its inscriptions, erasures, drips, and illuminations. I consider proportion, scale, color and spatial relationships as key elements that affect perception and feeling.”

Dean Dass received his B.A. from the University of Northern Iowa, where he studied art, philosophy and anthropology, and his M.F.A. from The Tyler School of Art at Temple University. For 35 years, Dass taught studio art at the University of Virginia (1985-2020), receiving the All-University Teaching Award in 2003, for which he was nominated by students.

Dass’ work has been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and abroad and is in more than fifty public collections. He has received the State of Pennsylvania Arts Council Individual Fellowship, the State of Virginia Commission for the Arts Printmaking Prize, the State of Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Fellowship, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Individual Fellowship.

About the large-scale oil paintings in the Shumway Hall Atrium from the artist’s Fireflies series, Dass writes: “Often, I find images to work with on sci-fi television; on my grandchildren’s video games and YouTube channels; and in my own photographs of horizons, nighttime skies, and fires. Residencies in Southwest Ireland and in Northern Michigan – both containing Dark Sky Parks –helped me find these images. But it is the conflict and tension between two terms – flame and firefly – that create the metaphor. I would make this tension visceral.”

Virginia-based artist Michelle Gagliano received her B.A. from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire and her M.F.A. from American University in Washington, DC. A member of the Gallery Climate Coalition, Gagliano is recognized for her devotion to a sustainable studio practice, where she has eliminated the use of toxic materials and uses only natural, homemade paint “recipes” to create her work. Many of these recipes are inspired by Renaissance masters, including Raphael. His influence led Gagliano to a 2024 solo show at Casa Raffaello, the museum in Urbino, Italy that is the birthplace of Raphael, where Gagliano exhibited contemporary works made with natural paint recipes that Raphael used in the Italian Renaissance.

Gagliano’s works in the Cobb Foyer incorporate natural pigment that she sourced from land in Albemarle county, and are thus of this area in more ways than one. About these works, Gagliano writes, “The paintings echo the ethos of the local landscape. The earth element, incorporating the pigment made by myself, Albemarle clay, baked until soft threads of oranges emerged, ground, sifted and stirred with walnut oil. Textural and raw. The charcoal black, made from vine charcoal, spent vines, to be resurrected by fire into pigment. Walnut ink, cooked in water, opening up the colors of the black walnut. Fire, earth, air and water all in the balance of creation. Studio materials, from local to afar, were deliberately incorporated, celebrating the global commerce of artists since before the Renaissance.”

Sanda Iliescu earned a B.S.E. in Civil Engineering and an M.Arch in Architecture from Princeton University. She is a Professor of Architecture and Art at the University of Virginia, where she has collaborated with students on murals and public art installations. Her work has been recognized with prestigious honors, including the Rome Prize, a McDowell Fellowship in painting, and the Distinguished Artist Award from the New Jersey State Council of the Arts. Iliescu is also the author of The Hand and the Soul: Aesthetics and Ethics in Architecture and Art (University of Virginia Press, 2009) and Experiencing Art and Architecture: Lessons on Looking (Routledge, 2022).

About her series of works in Shumway Hall, titled Cities of the Mind, the artist writes: “These drawings celebrate the power of the simple geometric grid and the expressive possibilities of nuanced, luscious colors… As I made these drawings I came to think of them as my imaginary cities. While their gridded structure reminded me of the order and rationality in the plan of so many American cities—for example the repeating rectangular blocks defined by Manhattan’s streets and avenues—their rich colors were to me reminiscent of the delights and pleasures that cities can offer. They became my attempt to capture the amazing variety of urban life. To me, a city is an organized environment of buildings, offices, plazas, parks, playgrounds, and other spaces where people can live and work. But it is also a place of infinite sensation and pleasure, one in which the scent of food in a marketplace may recall a childhood memory; the flight of a bird may fill us with wonder and a peculiar sense of emotional lift, as if we ourselves could fly; a reflection in a glass plane may show us our fleeting facial expression and mirror the way we may feel at a particular moment in time.”

Annie Harris Massie is a Virginia-based painter known for works that depict the natural world while ultimately capturing light—and its power to reveal, obscure, and dissolve form—as their true subject. Massie received her B.A. in Studio Art from Hollins College and an M.A. in Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University. About her works in the Cobb Hall Solarium, she writes:

“The painting Early Spring adheres to a limited palette of neutral colors to depict the quiet of early spring before the riot of bright spring colors. Evocative of the lightness and subtlety of spring, the painting shows trees with a view of foothills in the distance. A point of interest is the young tree on the left side of the painting in both light and shadow of the more mature trees. Early Spring and the companion painting Fall are both developed from smaller plein air studies in the field.

The painting Fall depicts trees in the deep colors of fall on a mountainside with distant foothills, the unique rolling topography characteristic of the Piedmont. The focal point is the young beech tree in the central foreground, smaller than the mature trees but more dominant. Light, ephemeral and transitory, is always the real subject for me apart from the subject matter of trees, fields, etc. As a counterpoint to the fluctuating ethereal light is an awareness of the plasticity and weight of paint.”

Uzo Njoku is a Nigerian-American artist who graduated from the University of Virginia in 2019 with a B.A. in Studio Art. Njoku is known for vibrant, pattern-filled paintings that often explore themes of identity, femininity, and cultural heritage. A self-described “artrepreneur,” Njoku has expanded her work into product design, incorporating her artwork into clothing, wallpaper, puzzles, phone cases and more under her brand, Uzo Art.

About her three paintings in the Commons Lounge, Njoku writes, “In this series, I sought to capture the collective student experience at the University of Virginia through vibrant, stylized vignettes of campus life. Each piece reflects a distinct yet interconnected moment—graduation, study sessions, and casual interactions—highlighting the diverse and dynamic rhythm of student life.

The first artwork celebrates the joy and achievement of graduation, symbolizing both a culmination and a beginning. The figures, adorned in caps and gowns, are surrounded by proud family members, faculty, and friends, creating a scene rich with emotion and shared triumph. The second piece depicts students engaged in learning and collaboration at the amphitheater. Through bold, colorful patterns and casual body language, I aimed to represent the creative exchange of ideas, the individuality of each student, and the communal energy of academic growth. The third artwork offers a quieter, contemplative scene on the lawn, showcasing students in more relaxed moments—reading, conversing, and reflecting. This piece conveys the personal journeys that unfold alongside the collective experience, emphasizing the importance of self-discovery and connection.”

A Life Worth Living, 2025 | Repurposed wood, wood glue, acrylic, HDPE

Ato Ribeiro (b. 1989) is a multidisciplinary artist working in a variety of media, including sculptural installation, drawing, and printmaking. He was born in Philadelphia and spent the formative years of his life in Accra, Ghana, before relocating to Atlanta, GA, where he is currently a member of the Studio Artist Program at Atlanta Contemporary. He earned a B.A. from Morehouse College and an M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Ribeiro was a recent Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 2024 Biennial Grant Awardee, served as a 2024 Artist in Residence at the Fountainhead Residency and as a 2022/2023 MOCA GA WAP Fellow, and has received Fellowships at Vermont Studio Center and Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. His work is in the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Phoenix Art Museum, Detroit Institute of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, and Mercedes-Benz USA Headquarters, among others. 

Explaining his site-specific commission for the Innovation Gallery of Shumway Hall, Ribeiro writes, “By employing familiar practices—of collecting, joining and refining natural and repurposed materials—A Life Worth Living provides educational opportunities to seek out new points of reference, while preserving layers of African cultural heritage and varying ethnic perspectives. This research mines and honors a variety of shared and neglected histories in order to visually speak to a contemporary sense of cultural hybridity. With proximity, viewers may be able to decipher various compositions, including eight large adinkra symbols that highlight significant brand attributes of the UVA McIntire School of Business (Honorable, Enterprising, Intuitive, Respected, Fearless, Collaborative, Proven and Committed). These symbols and a visual reference to UVA’s iconic Rotunda, which consists of salvaged woods from the renovation of Cobb Hall, bookend the doorway, or portal, leading to faculty offices.”

Photo © Gregory Miller