Art Gallery

Rockford University Art Gallery

Rockford University Art Gallery is always free.
Open to the public:

• Current Gallery Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12pm-3pm
• Contact anorris@rockford.edu
• Or by appointment

Contact: Gallery Director Ari Norris at anorris@rockford.edu

The Rockford University Art Gallery provides a varied series of art exhibitions and related programming in support of the Department of Art and Art History and is an important educational and cultural resource for the campus and community. The Gallery is located in the Clark Arts Center, the locus of the University’s Department of Art and Art History.

Spring 2026 Exhibitions

Conrad Bakker /
Untitled Projects

On Display: January 19th-March 2nd
Reception: Friday, February 20th, 6:00-8:00PM
Artist Talk: Friday, February 20th, 7:00PM

Conrad Bakker makes carved and painted sculptures of everyday objects and positions them specifically to reveal their political economies and relational networks. Bakker has exhibited his work extensively, including Tate Modern (London), Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon (France), Galerie Analix Forever (Geneva), Fargfabriken Center for Contemporary Art and Architecture (Stockholm), the New Museum (New York), the Renaissance Society (Chicago), the Contemporary Art Museum Houston, The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Salt Lake City), in Cabinet Magazine, in stranger’s mailboxes and on his own front lawn. His work has been the subject of articles and reviews in Frieze, Contemporary, Flash Art, Art Forum, Art World Magazine, ArtUS, Art Papers, Sculpture, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Conrad Bakker has been awarded individual artist grants from the Creative Capital Foundation, The Illinois Arts Council, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant Program. He teaches in the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club consists of carved and painted book/sculptures based on the titles from the personal library of conceptual artist and land art pioneer Robert Smithson. Smithson’s personal library is notable in that his titles reveal a wide range of subjects, providing a unique window into his research and practice—and also functioning like a time capsule featuring the culture and ideas of his time. Soon after Robert Smithson’s untimely death in 1973, all of his books were catalogued, boxed, and placed into the Archives of American Art, where they currently reside.

Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library and Book Club has been exhibited at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, The Wright Museum at Beloit College, The Institute of Contemporary Art
at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, The Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois, and as “R. SMITHSON’S BOOKS” a faux, used bookstore in the storefront of the Famous Hardware building in Springdale, Arkansas, at Shed Projects in Cleveland, Ohio and most recently at International Objects in Brooklyn, as part of the group exhibition: Extra Taste.

Rockford University Faculty Exhibition Molly Dillon, Dave Menard, Ari Norris, Philip Soosloff

On Display: March 23rd-April24th
Reception: Friday, April 24th, 6:00-8:00PM
Artists’ Talk: Friday, April 24th, 7:00PM

Molly Dillon holds both an M.A. and M.F.A. from Northern Illinois University, majoring in painting and drawing with a minor emphasis in 2D and 3D design. Dillon has had a 35 year career in print media, graphic design and marketing, and currently teaches as an adjunct at Rockford University. Dillon owns and operates Mad Dog Designs, in business since the early 1990s, specializing in graphic design needs for small businesses, not-for profit organizations, and sole proprietorships. Dillon has exhibited art in galleries in the Midwest, but has also shown across the U.S., as well as in Canada. Much of her art includes imagery and influences from sources ranging from advertising, movies and comic books / cartoons, to primitive, folk, and tribal art /designs from all across the world.

Dave Menard is a printmaker, painter, and educator based in northern Illinois, where he is an associate professor at Rockford University. Over the past thirty years, he has developed a diverse body of work—including drawing, collage, painting, and printmaking—exhibited nationally and internationally. Menard holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. He is also a collaborator with the collective FATHERLESS, contributing graphics, installations, and murals. Their work has been featured in publications such as People of Print and Time Out London and exhibited at Fountain Art Fair in Miami and Moniker Art Fair in New York. Menard’s practice integrates collage, drawing, and traditional printmaking techniques, using appropriation and figuration to explore culture, politics, and social justice. Guided by abstraction and improvisation, his visual language reflects influences from the Chicago Imagists, rock-and-roll youth culture, and a DIY ethos.

Ari Norris is an artist primarily working in sculpture. His work utilizes a variety of processes and materials in what generally result in the duplication of real-world objects, aimed at exploring the boundaries between the ordinary and the phenomenal. Norris received an MA from Northern Illinois University in 2021, and has exhibited solo shows in Chicago at David Salkin Creative, Artruss, and The Plan. Norris has been included in exhibitions at Left Field Gallery (Los Osos, CA); ANDREW RAFACZ (Chicago, IL); South Bend Museum of Art (South Bend, IN); among other locations including Michigan, Missouri, New York, Florida, Texas, and Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. Reviews of the artist’s solo exhibitions have been published by both Chicago Spleen and Newcity, and his work has been included in publications such as Chicago Gallery News, Bad at Sports, Artdose, and Whitewall. In 2025, Norris was awarded the Luminarts Visual Arts Fellowship.

Philip Soosloff is a Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Rockford University in Rockford Illinois where he teaches ceramics, 3-D Design and sculpture. He received an MFA from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois in 1993. His work has been shown in galleries and museums across the United States for over 30 years. Recent exhibitions include the S.O.F.A. (Sculpture Objects Functional Art) Chicago Art Expo at Navy Pier from 2003-2017. His work has also been exhibited at SOFA New York, SOFA Sante Fe and Art Miami. He lives in Plato Center, Illinois in a remodeled farmhouse with his wife Laura and dog Lucy. His studio is a converted machine shed on the property.

Chris Sisson is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Art & Art History at Rockford University, where he teaches graphic design and studio art. He holds an M.F.A. in Painting and a B.F.A. in Illustration from Northern Illinois University and has worked for more than twenty-five years as a designer, illustrator, and educator. His work has received recognition from organizations including GDUSA, UCDA, AIGA, STA, HOW, and Creative Quarterly.

Sisson’s practice includes mixed media painting, drawing, digital image-making, and typographic exploration. His work examines narrative, visual association, and the psychological processes that shape how people interpret and remember what they see. Story acts as a catalyst for the development of visual form and meaning, while typography operates as both language and image; a form of meta-communication that shapes how messages are perceived and understood.

Fingerprints 2026                                                                                                                                                        Rockford University Literary Arts Magazine                                                                                                        Student Exhibition & Release Event                                                                                                                            On Display: May 1 – May 8                                                                                                                Reception: Friday, May 1, 6:00–8:00 PM

The Rockford University Art Gallery presents a visual exhibition celebrating the Spring 2026 edition of Fingerprints, the university’s student-run literary arts magazine. The publication features poetry, short stories, creative prose, visual art, sculpture, photography, and graphic design contributed by members of the Rockford University campus community and is designed and produced by graphic design students in the ART 377 course.

The exhibition presents Fingerprints both as a finished publication and as a collaborative creative project. Visitors will encounter selections from the magazine alongside visual material reflecting the ideas, artwork, and design process behind its creation. In addition, this exhibition will also feature the Senior Projects of graphic design majors Mazen Alharthi and Lizbeth Andrade.