Museum Banners

The University Art Museum’s new banner project publicly showcases artwork from 12 artists who have previously exhibited at the museum. Located just south of Collins Circle on the University at Albany Campus, these banners adorn each column in front of the museum’s main entrance. Each banner features a single artwork from exhibitions spanning from 2008 to 2022. The museum staff collaborated with each artist to crop their images for the banner format, with the full-sized works reproduced below. This initiative represents the breadth and diversity of the artists who have exhibited at the museum and underscores the museum’s commitment to bringing the work of significant contemporary artists to the greater UAlbany community.

About the Artists

Conor Backman

Conor Backman
A poem is always new because it lives in the ear, 2015
Oil on canvas over panel, modified paint can, rear-painted plexiglass
23 x 17 inches
Collection of Harry and Mary Davis

Conor Backman was born in 1988, Arlington, VA and lives and works in New York, NY.

Selected solo exhibitions include Smart Objects, Los Angeles, CA (2016); James Fuentes, New York, NY (2015); and Retrospective Gallery, Hudson, NY (2015). Selected group exhibitions include Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Berlin, Germany (2016); The Capodimonte Museum, Naples, Italy (2014); Saamlung, Hong Kong (2012), and Higher Pictures, New York, NY (2012).

Backman received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA (2011).

Conor Backman: A Clock and Map Minute

An oil painting of a gray ocean and sky hung on a wall, with a paint can protruding from the center. Inserted inside the paint can, is a circle of pink, translucent glass.

Alex Bradley Cohen

Alex Bradley Cohen
Bruce Wilson in Flaxman Library, 2017
Acrylic on canvas
55 x 40 inches
Collection of Carlos de Villa-Amil and Nir Polonsky

Alex Bradley Cohen was born in 1989 in Chicago, IL and lives and works in Chicago, IL.

Selected solo and group exhibitions include Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC (2023); Mana Contemporary, Chicago, IL (2017); Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY (2016); and the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2016).

Cohen received an MFA from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (2020), a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2014), and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, ME (2014).

Triple: Alex Bradley Cohen, Louis Fratino, and Tschabalala Self

A colorful, abstracted painting of a black man, posing in a library.

Steve DiBenedetto

Steve DiBenedetto
Edge Dwelling, 2008
Oil on canvas
6 x 74 ½ inches
Courtesy of David Nolan Gallery, New York

Steve DiBenedetto was born in 1958 in the Bronx, NY and lives and works in New York, NY.

Selected solo and group exhibitions include, David Nolan Gallery, New York, NY (2023); The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT (2015); American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY (2015); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (2015); and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2005). He is the recipient of numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship Award (2003) and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Competition Award (2003).

DiBenedetto received a BFA from Parsons School of Design, New York, NY (1980).

Steve DiBenedetto: Edge Dwelling

A brightly colored, almost neon, painting of a tower, with an octopus on the ground beneath it, and a helicopter soaring above it.

Keltie Ferris

Keltie Ferris
oRiOn, 2015
Acrylic and oil on canvas
72 x 60 inches
Private collection, courtesy the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York

Keltie Ferris was born in 1977 in Louisville, KY and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Selected solo exhibitions include Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY (2018); Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA (2014); and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO (2009). Selected group exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL (2024); Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (2024); and American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY (2022).

Ferris received an MFA from Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT (2006), and a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (2004).

Keltie Ferris: Body Prints and Paintings

A mostly purple, abstract painting with yellow and red dots that twinkle across the surface in a repeated, rectangular pattern.

Louis Fratino

Louis Fratino
A Girl, Two Boys and a Daughter, 2018
Oil and crayon on canvas
30 x 40 inches
Courtesy of Thierry Goldberg Gallery

Louis Fratino was born in 1993 in Annapolis, MD and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Selected solo and group exhibitions include Il Centro per I’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy (2024); Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2024); and Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, The Netherlands (2023). His work is in public collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, among others.

Fratino received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD (2015).

Triple: Alex Bradley Cohen, Louis Fratino, and Tschabalala Self

A stylistic painting of two men holding each other and a sleeping baby, with a woman standing behind them.

Mary Reid Kelley

Mary Reid Kelley with Patrick Kelley
The Syphilis of Sisyphus (still), 2011
HD video, 11:02 minutes; sound
Courtesy of the artist and Fredericks & Freiser Gallery, New York, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, and Pilar Corrias Gallery, London, UK

Mary Reid Kelley was born in 1979 in Greenville, SC and lives and works in Olivebridge, NY.

Selected solo exhibitions include The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA (2021); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA (2021); Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK (2017); MUDAM Luxembourg, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg (2017); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2015); and SITE SANTA FE, Santa Fe, NM (2015). She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including a MacArthur Fellowship (2016); Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2014); and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant (2013).

Kelley received an MFA from Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT (2009) and a BFA from St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN (2001).

Mary Reid Kelley: Working Objects and Videos

A black and white video still of the artist in costume, theatrically looking in a mirror at a vanity in a room heavily decorated with drawings.

Michelle Young Lee

Michelle Young Lee
I am the Signal; You are the Wave, 2021
Neon, glass tubes, generator box, generator wire, bulb supports
72 x 25 inches
Courtesy of the artist

Michelle Young Lee was born in 1981 in Los Angeles, CA and lives and works in Southington, CT and New York, NY.

Selected solo exhibitions include 80WSE Gallery, New York, NY (2012); Gallery Space at Wagner, New York, NY (2012); and Boda Center of Visual Arts in Seoul, South Korea (2009). Selected group exhibitions include MoMA PS1, New York, NY (2018); Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2017); Lyeberry HQ, Brooklyn, NY (2016); and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (2015).

Lee received an MFA from New York University, New York, NY (2013) and a BFA from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA (2006).

Well/Being: An Exhibition on Healing and Repair

Neon sculpture of a white hand, with red nails, holding a red rose.

Lamar Peterson

Lamar Peterson
Untitled, 2005
Acrylic on paper
40 x 31 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Fredericks & Freiser, New York

Lamar Peterson was born in 1974 in St. Petersburg, FL and lives and works in Minneapolis, MN.

Selected solo exhibitions include Carl Kostyál, Stockholm, Sweden (2023); Rochester Art Center, Rochester, MN (2014); and Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY (2005). He has received numerous grants including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grant (2024) and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2013) and residencies including the Giverny Residence Program (2008) and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2002).

Peterson received an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI (2001) and a BS from Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, FL (1999).

Blue Plastic Bubbles: Paintings by Lamar Peterson

A graphic painting of a landscape, with a section of white picket fence in the foreground, and a male deer in front of a pine tree in the background.

Ronny Quevedo

Ronny Quevedo and Noemi Quevedo
el back-centro, 2019
Wax, gold leaf, and thread on muslin
43 1/2 x 26 inches
Private Collection
Courtesy the artist and Alexander Gray Associates, New York
© 2025 Ronny Quevedo

Ronny Quevedo was born in 1981 in Guayaquil, Ecuador and lives and works in New York, NY.

Selected solo exhibitions include Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL (2025); The Menil Collection, Houston, TX (2024); and Queens Museum, NY (2017). Selected group exhibitions include Hill Art Foundation, New York, NY (2024) and Denver Art Museum, CO (2021). He is also the recipient of numerous grants and awards including Trellis Art Fund Award (2024); Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant (2022); Joan Mitchell Fellowship (2021); Harpo Foundation New Work Project Grant (2021); and Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2019).

Quevedo received an MFA from Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT (2012) and a BFA from The Cooper Union, New York, NY (2003).

Ronny Quevedo: offside
ACE: art on sports, promise, and selfhood

A collage of drawings on top of sewing pattern diagrams, adhered to a piece of fabric, hanging from a wooden dowel.

Carrie Schneider

Carrie Schneider
Dots color test negative, 2018
Unique chromogenic print made in camera
14 x 11 inches

Carrie Schneider was born in 1979 in Chicago, IL and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Hudson, NY.

Selected solo exhibitions include MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2023); Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL (2017); and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL (2009). She has received numerous awards and grants including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2024); Creative Capital Award (2015); Joan Mitchell Foundation Residency Fellowship (2009); and a J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Award to Finland (2007–08).

Schneider received an MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2007) and a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA (2001).

Carrie Schneider: Rapt (2019)

A photographic print of a gridded color swatch paper on a dark purple background, with seven dots on the surface, seemingly resulting from a chemical process.

Shane Aslan Selzer

Shane Aslan Selzer
Together Our Resistance Channels Hope (TORCH), 2021
200 denier nylon
3 x 5 feet each
Courtesy of the artist

Shane Aslan Selzer was born in 1977 in Washington, DC and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Selected exhibitions and screenings include Julia Stoschek Foundation, Düsseldorf, Germany (2019); Tabakalera, San Sebastián, Spain (2018); and Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York, NY (2018). She started and is founding editor of the Social Action Archive Committee (SAAC) (2014).

Selzer received an MFA from California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2004), an MA from California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2004), and a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI (2000).

Torch '72/2020

Three flag shaped banners, hanging from the ceiling, depicting collaged protest photographs.

Ashley Teamer

Ashley Teamer
Karen Gipson, 2019
Acrylic, Flashe, and latex paint over inkjet print on plywood
26 x 20 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Larrie NYC

Ashley Teamer was born in 1999 in New Orleans, LA and lives and works in New Orleans, LA.

Selected group exhibitions include Prospect-6, New Orleans, LA (2024); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA (2024); and Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY (2023). She attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2014 and served as dean from 2019–23.

Teamer received an MFA from Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT (2022) and a BFA from Boston University, Boston, MA (2013).

ACE: art on sports, promise, and selfhood

A playfully abstract painting, on top of a photograph of a female basketball player, about to shoot.