2024 Artist-in-Residence

2024 Artist-in-Residence Amanda Maciuba

2024 Artist-in-Residence, Amanda Maciuba

Born and raised in the Buffalo, NY area, Amanda Maciuba (she/her/hers) graduated from the University at Buffalo with a degree in Visual Studies. She has an MFA in printmaking and a Certificate of Book Arts from the University of Iowa. Amanda Maciuba's work is concerned with the landscapes, communities, development practices and environmental practices throughout the United States. By reacting directly to the landscapes and environments she is living in at the time, her work examines, celebrates, and critiques place. Maciuba's current work is a response to the landscapes and communities she currently lives in, most recently, Western Massachusetts, Upstate New York, and the Missouri River watershed.

Through a combination of prints, drawings, artist's books and digital media, Maciuba responds directly to the environment in which she is situated. Her work examines and critiques representations of place throughout history, highlighting the current and future state of the landscape.

Maciuba shows her work regularly throughout the United States and has participated in artist residencies at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Fire Island National Seashore, the Lawrence Arts Center, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, the Kathmandu International Artist Residency, the Haystack Open Studio Residency, and Indiana Dunes National Park. Currently, she teaches printmaking, drawing and book arts at Mount Holyoke College in Western Massachusetts.

Spending time at Indiana Dunes Artist Residency has provided her with both uniquely specific location in the very center of the upper Great Lakes watershed to base her research out of as well as the time needed to develop a new body of work.

 

2024 Artist-in-Residence Christine Hubbell

2024 Artist-in-Residence, Christine Hubbell

Christine Hubbell is a Northwest Indiana artist trained in botanical and scientific illustration at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Her work has been traveled nationally as part of juried exhibitions. She works primarily in colored pencil, creating realistic portraits of birds and botanicals, incorporating elements of storytelling and whimsy.

Christine develops her paintings from sketches and research, working both in the field and in the studio from natural materials whenever possible. The finished pieces are built on translucent substrates, which allows her to play with hidden and revealed elements. The stories she tells shift over time, but recently have focused on the themes of homecoming, migration, movement, and personal geography. Christine advocates for creating and preserving bird habitat, and when not working on art, she can be found spreading prairie plant seeds in her back yard or photographing and watching birds and insects. She grew up visiting the shores of Lake Michigan, sometimes skipping school to spend a late fall morning at the beach with her mom and sister. Now she gets to live and work in the landscapes that have always been close to her heart.

She’s had a connection to the Dunes long before she was an artist and has visited the park since childhood. The beauty of the light on the water and the sound of the waves feels like home. She became an artist and a conservation volunteer in Colorado, returning after 18 years with renewed excitement about the aesthetic possibilities of living and working in the Dunes. Her work also explores the concept of "home" for people, plants, and animals, expanding upon this more deeply as an artist-in-residence.

During her residency, she infused her work with sketches and studies of park properties, to explore the historic connections between people and landscape, and share that work with the park and its visitors. Her work combines colored pencil bird portraits with contemporary landscapes created from digitally modified photos and texts reflecting historic changes in land use. It's a step toward collage, with each element carefully designed and combined using multimedia techniques. She describes this technique as developing, ongoing, and benefiting from the focused attention during her residency in the park. She has created other works to include in an end-of-year solo exhibition. As an art teacher, she has led workshops on sketching birds from life and nature journaling and is currently teaching classes in colored pencil. Her finished work donated to the National Park is now part of the legacy of artists who draw inspiration from nature.

 

2024 Artist-in-Residence René Vilchis

2024 Artist-in-Residence, René Vilchis

René is a Chicago-based artist, primarily working with oil paint. His art is all about capturing the beauty of nature through the use of color and composition. He believes in the power of simplicity and strives to incorporate it in his work, creating pieces that are both pleasing to the eye and thought-provoking. Nature is his biggest inspiration and seeks to convey its raw and untouched essence through his paintings. Whether it's a simple landscape or a vibrant portrait, his goal is to evoke a sense of calmness and tranquility in the viewer.

René states that “painting requires consistency and focus.” Removing distractions and being engrossed in the landscape of the Dunes gave him an opportunity to showcase his interpretation of beauty, and gravity of the Indiana Dunes. As a subject, the ecosystem of the area that makes up the shoreline has so much to offer in terms of visual analysis for art; from the juxtaposition of the imposing and seemingly permanent industrial shoreline to the very fragile and ephemeral beauty of nature surrounding it.

René has used this opportunity to create work that expands his body of work and create a cohesive story of a single subject. He’s built a routine to best capture the many faces the Dunes. In his personal work, he enjoys hopping from piece to piece, always looking for a better approach. In thisresidency, he challenged himself to finish any work that he started. In doing so, believes this will demonstrate a true and honest interpretation without imperfection. He was eager to leave room to meet the other artists and art enthusiasts and communally enjoy the natural wonders of the Dunes.