College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA) Dean bruce mcclung has announced the appointment of Barbara Campbell Thomas as Director of the School of Art.
Barbara Campbell Thomas is currently Professor of Art at UNCG’s School of Art where she has taught for twenty years. She has spent her professional life balancing a deep commitment to education and art. This equal determination to be excellent in the classroom and the artist’s studio stems from the simple fact that Campbell Thomas’s own life has been transformed by art and education. While at UNCG, she has been Director of the Gatewood Gallery as well as Director of Undergraduate Studies. She is a founding member of the School of Art’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and currently serves the School of Art as Faculty Senator.
Campbell Thomas is a nationally recognized painter with an active record of solo and group exhibitions. Her paintings have been exhibited in museums and galleries across the United States, including the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Hidell Brooks Gallery, The Painting Center in New York City, the Atlanta Center for Contemporary Art, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, and the North Carolina Museum of Art. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences, the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture, and the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency. In May 2023, she will be an artist-in-residence at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Campbell Thomas is a 2018 recipient of a North Carolina Artists Fellowship. Recently, her studio practice was featured in Art of The State: Celebrating the Visual Art of North Carolina, published by UNC Press.
Barbara Campbell Thomas earned her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from the University of California, Berkeley and her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from the Pennsylvania State University. She is a Fellow of the Yale Summer School of Music and Art. She will assume the position of Director of CVPA’s School of Art on August 1, 2023.
Please join us in welcoming Barbara Campbell Thomas to the CVPA family!
Photo credit: Lissa Gotwals, first published in Art of The State: Celebrating the Visual Art of North Carolina, published by UNC Press, 2022.