Madalyn Cowan

In the Mazie Jones Gallery

Madalyn Cowan’s interest in art was nurtured from a young age, participating in her first oil painting class when she was ten years old. She attended Northwest School of the Arts in Charlotte, NC where she focused mainly on photography and ceramics. She then got her Associates in Fine Arts from Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, where she shifted her focus towards printmaking and drawing. She fell in love with book arts and is currently pursuing that through her BFA in Studio Art.

While at ASU, Madalyn had the opportunity to travel to Cuba to study with master printers at the Taller Experimental de Grafica. She has exhibited in group shows in Charlotte, NC, Cuba; and at the Watauga Arts Council and 3^rd Place galleries in Boone, NC. A solo exhibition of her work is opening next month at the Uncommon Art Space in Charlotte. Madalyn plans to continue her education with an MFA in printmaking and book arts from UArts in Philadelphia.

Justin Leitner

In Upstairs Gallery One

Justin Leitner was born in 1990 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is completing his BFA in Studio Art with a concentration in painting and drawing. After high school, Leitner completed an internship at Artspace in Raleigh, NC where he learned to paint from professional artists Luana Winner and Judy Crane.

During his three years at Artspace, his work was primarily focused on portraiture and landscape, with his only visual outlet being to outline human and animalistic characteristics he saw within the negative spaces of his work. His current practice involves combining these two visual techniques into one cohesive idea.

Eric Stewart

In the Mazie Jones Gallery

Eric Stewart of Hendersonville, NC attended NC State University for the first part of his undergrad experience, and is finishing his BFA in Studio Art. With interests ranging from painting and design, to printmaking and drawing, Stewart strives to work with different types of media. Working with ideas of interconnectedness, cultural-symbology, duality, public art, and conceptual formats, his work looks to express larger societal and personal concerns. Stewart plans on continuing his life in the arts and hopes to one day teach at the collegiate level or work with organizations that deal with LGBT activism and awareness.

Alexandria Walls

In Upstairs Gallery Two

Born in Palo Alto, CA in 1990, Alexandria Walls is pursuing a BFA in Studio Art. Through her exploration of the arts she has employed many different mediums including painting, video, sound, and new media. Her work carries a message of collective expression, seeking to uncover the ways that cultures can communicate through the most basic and relevant tools. Whether it be an expressive mark on the canvas or an interactive sound experiment, the abstraction of common and fundamental elements of the human experience are brought back to their essential existence and re-envisioned with a creative and innovative mind. She has studied at art schools and programs across the country including an undergraduate art residency at San Francisco Art Institute, and a painting apprenticeship at Andy Braitman Studios in North Carolina.