Please join us for an Artist Talk and Reception featuring artists Valerie Lyons and Adam Viens

The William Blizard Gallery presents two concurrent exhibitions that explore perception, meaning, and presence in a world defined by transience – Not All Birds are Blackbirds by Valerie Lyons and The Ethics of Ambiguity by Adam Viens. The exhibitions run from March 2 through April 3.

Together, Viens and Lyons lean into intuition as a mode of practice. Viens engages silence as structure through large-scale abstract paintings that suspend resolution and resist the overproduction of meaning. Lyons offers sculptural and sonic works that move through light, shadow, and care—acts of witnessing where perception itself becomes devotional. In the context of a college gallery, these exhibitions take on particular resonance. They invite students, faculty, and the wider community into a shared space of inquiry where art becomes both reflection and experiment. By foregrounding intuition, both artists resist the demand for fixed answers, instead modeling how creative practice can cultivate attentiveness, ambiguity, and relational understanding. Placed side by side, the exhibitions move through the complexity of contemporary life—between human and natural, reason and intuition, spirit and form. Art here becomes a pedagogical act as much as an aesthetic one: a meditation on how we remain present amid uncertainty, transformation, and change.

Artist Talk begins at 3:15 PM, followed by a Reception from 4:00-5:30 PM