Cal Poly University Art Gallery is excited to announce the opening of Kerri Conlon’s “Permission Structures,” running from Nov. 5 to Dec. 5.
On Wednesday, Nov. 5, there will be an opening in the Gallery, found in Dexter 34, from 5 to 7 p.m. The artist will be present and will give a walkthrough of their work at 5:15 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.
Kerri Conlon is an artist and educator living and working in San Francisco, CA. She received her MFA in Sculpture from the Yale School of Art in 2019 and her BFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2009. Her practice explores the intersections of construction — both architectural and cultural — investigating how identity and space are shaped by structures that are at once physical and ideological.
Working with craft and architectural materials, Conlon creates large-scale sculptural installations that fuse the ornamental with the structural. Her work uses tactile processes to examine how we inhabit, uphold and challenge the frameworks that shape our lives — whether built, inherited or imagined.
She has exhibited nationally, with recent solo exhibitions including Upholding at Bass and Reiner in San Francisco, CA, and Throughway at Cube Space Gallery in Berkeley, CA. Her work has also been shown in New York, NY; Providence, RI; and Ferguson, MO. She has received numerous fellowships and awards, including the Lighthouse Works Fellowship (2023) and the Fannie B. Pardee Prize for Excellence in Sculpture (2019).
In addition to her studio practice, Conlon has worked in academic shop spaces since 2007, teaching students the conceptual and technical skills necessary to translate ideas into physical form. She believes that making is a way of knowing and fosters agency in students through hands-on engagement with materials and processes. She is currently a Lecturer in the Art and Art History Department at Stanford University. She is the co-founder of Hunt Projects, a shared studio space in San Francisco that provides artists with private studios and a communal wood and metal shop for material exploration and dialogue. She continues to expand the impact of her work through immersive installations and a growing interest in public sculpture, using art to challenge and reimagine the built environment.
Proceeding the opening of the exhibition, the University Art Gallery will be open Tuesdays through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. As always, the gallery is free and open to the public; however, we do receive charitable donations that support our operations and exhibitions: University Art Gallery - Giving.
