Widener Gallery
Widener Gallery is Trinity College’s premiere exhibition space of contemporary art by local, national, and international artists addressing global concerns. Directed by the Studio Arts Program, scholarly curation at the gallery engages with critical issues through the works of invited visiting artists and selections from the Trinity College Art Collection. Located on the ground floor of the Austin Arts Center, Widener Gallery is free and welcomes the public.
WIDENER GALLERY IS CURRENTLY CLOSED FOR THE SUMMER.
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
FELLOWS: WORK BY SELECT ALUMNI OF THE STUDIO ARTS POSTBACCALAUREATE FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
September 24 – October 30, 2026 (Closed October 12-13)
Reception: October 1, 4 – 6 pm
Fellows brings together work by three Trinity College Studio Arts Postbaccalaureate Fellowship Alumni: Ciara Rubí, Sydney Smith, and Weixi Zhang (’18). In this exhibition, which features recent collage, prints, video, and sculpture, the artworks stem from close observation of the self and current realities.
Ciara Rubí’s work plays a game of hide and seek, where she impersonates the hider and the seeker, and the camera is the antagonist. Many works begin with Polaroid autoportraits, which Rubí undoes through scratching, layering, cutting, and peeling until they are no longer recognizable. Her undone bodies come back in collages with fabric, pencil, oil pastel, and charcoal. In other work, autofiction drawings seek to catch her self just before it performs itself.
Sydney Smith creates large-scale wooden sculptures to question her place within the world. Embracing ecological processes as part of her sculptural practice, she acknowledges found wood or stone as fellow bodies, with their own stories and histories. Smith manipulates these natural materials to challenge conventional form, testing physical and metaphorical extremes. Often, these forms suggest the body and aid in understanding nature and oneself.
Weixi Zhang works in installation, performance, and image-making, intervening in spaces where she never fully belongs. Her research turns to diasporic dislocation, hydrological memory, inherited fatalism, and techno-industrial indifference. She constructs situations and sets them against these forces, then studies the remains after contingency: data, traces, sound, and residue.
Artist Bios:
Ciara Rubí (she/her) holds a BA in Art and History of Art from Yale College. Her work has been exhibited at the Yale School of Art, Maya’s Room, The Study Hotel, and in DOWN Magazine, and she earned The Anderson Ranch Workshop Scholarship, The Gary Stein Fellowship, and The Lewis Curtis Fellowship. At present, she serves as the Guest-Artist-in-Residence at Southwestern Oregon Community College through The Coos Bay Art Museum, where she will have a solo exhibition in the fall of 2027.
Sydney Smith (she/her) holds a BA from Wesleyan University and is based in Hartford, CT. Her work was recently featured in a solo exhibition at Ball & Socket Arts and has also been exhibited at Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Hampshire Art Association, National Art League in Queens, NY, and Zilkha Gallery at Wesleyan University. Smith recently completed an artist residency at Vermont Studio Center, and she teaches classes at Makerspace CT; her three-session ‘Women in the Woodshop’ course invites women to learn woodshop skills and basics.
Weixi Zhang (she/her) was born in Dalian, China. She holds a BA in Studio Arts and a BS in Computer Science from Trinity College. She also received an MS in Human Computer Interaction and Design from the University of Washington. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and is pursuing an MFA at Hunter College.
About Trinity College Studio Arts Postbaccalaureate Fellowship:
The Studio Arts Program Postbaccalaureate Fellowships at Trinity College provide workspace, time, and a supportive arts community so talented individuals who have studied studio arts at a university, art school, or liberal arts college can have the extra resources they need to prepare the strongest possible portfolio in support of applications to graduate school in art. The fellowships allow recent college graduates to spend an academic year at Trinity working as assistants for the Studio Arts Program and prepare to apply to graduate school.
The Studio Arts Program gratefully acknowledges the support of The Deborah Buck Foundation and Hilla Von Rebay Foundation for the fellowship since 2019 and 2001, consecutively.
Widener Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday 10 am – 5 pm and by appointment
For more information, contact
Lisa Lynch, [email protected], 860-297-5237 Or
Tracy Quigley, [email protected], 860-297-5232
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