College of Arts + Architecture

Seven current College of Arts + Architecture faculty members are among recent grant recipients from the Arts & Science Council. They earned Artist Support Grants, which fund professional and artistic development for emerging and established artists to enhance their skills and abilities to create work or to improve their business operations and capacity to bring their work to new audiences.

The 2024 ASC grant recipients are:

The Nouveau Sud Project, the urban circus initiative founded by Associate Professor of Theatre CarlosAlexis Cruz, is a recipient of a 2023 Knight Art + Tech Expansion Fund from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Nouveau Sud is one of 22 Charlotte-based artists and arts organizations to receive funds in 2023.

Ashley Tate, assistant professor of dance, recently presented, “When A Black Man Walks,” at the third annual Baltimore Black Choreographers Festival, a weekend of performances, panels and workshops designed to highlight Black choreographers. 

Alumnus Antoine Williams ’03 has created four multimedia public artworks located in different quadrants of Washington, D.C., as part of The Nicholson Project, a paid artist residency program in the district.

Ghosts, haunted houses, spiders and spirits are all commonplace in American society. With the popularity of Halloween and highly realistic horror films, people can enjoy immense scares, while also dressing up and collecting candy to celebrate the year’s spookiest season.

The “Bleachery Heritage Plaza,” designed by Associate Professor of Architecture Rachel Dickey, has received the 2023 BLT Built Design Award for Cultural Heritage Landscape in the Landscape Architecture category. This annual international competition recognizes “the most pioneering and groundbreaking designs” in four broad categories.

Carmen Neely ’12 completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting at UNC Charlotte and within five years, she he was giving solo gallery exhibitions in major U.S. cities like New York and Miami. Since then, she has added Chicago, where she currently lives, Paris and Düsseldorf, Germany, to the growing list.  

Most recently, she added the installation of one of her paintings in the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris to her list of accomplishments.

A new book by Professor of Art Education Jane Dalton introduces mindfulness-based expressive arts practices to art teachers.

Alumna Pooja Nair has been named “Rookie Teacher of the Year” by the North Carolina Art Educators Association, the state’s largest advocacy group dedicated to supporting visual arts education. The NCAEA honors one beginning teacher each year who has made “an exemplary initial contribution” and “demonstrates the potential for development.”

Classroom management, curriculum development and dance instruction. These were the tasks given to a talented, motivated group of students from the University’s Department of Dance who interned at Barre Belle over the past summer.