Gwen Strahle

Assistant Professor
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RISD faculty member Gwen Strahle
BA, Rhode Island College
MFA, Yale University

Gwen Strahle has been teaching drawing at RISD since 1984 and is a past recipient of the John R. Frazier Award for Excellence in Teaching. She shows her paintings with Zeuxis, an association of still-life painters, and at Lenore Gray Gallery in Providence, and her work has also been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country.

Strahle is the recipient of awards from the Connecticut Artist Fellowship, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Ingram Merrill Foundation.

Courses

Fall 2023 Courses

FOUND 1001-21 - STUDIO:DRAWING
Level Undergraduate
Unit Experimental and Foundation Studies
Subject Foundation Studies
Period Fall 2023
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

FOUND 1001-21

STUDIO:DRAWING

Level Undergraduate
Unit Experimental and Foundation Studies
Subject Foundation Studies
Period Fall 2023
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2023-09-06 to 2023-12-13
Times: F | 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM; F | 8:30 AM - 12:00 PM Instructor(s): Gwen Strahle Location(s): Waterman Building, Room 41 Enrolled / Capacity: 21 Status: Closed

SECTION DESCRIPTION

Studio: Drawing is pursued in two directions: as a powerful way to investigate the world, and as an essential activity intrinsic to all artists and designers. As a primary mode of inquiry, drawing is a central means of forming questions and creating knowledge across disciplines. Through wide-ranging drawing approaches, students are prompted to work responsively and self-critically to embrace the unpredictable intersection of process, idea and media. To pursue these larger ideas, the studio becomes a laboratory of varied and challenging activities. Instructors introduce drawing as a dynamic two-dimensional record of sensory search, conceptual thought, or physical action. Students investigate materiality, imagined situations, idea generation, and the translation of the observable world. Formal and intellectual risks are encouraged during a sustained engagement with the possibilities of material, mark-making, perception, abstraction, performance, space and time. As students trust the drawing process, they become more informed about its uncharted potentials, and accept struggle as necessary and positive; they gain confidence in their own sensibilities.

Enrollment is limited to first-year Undergraduate Students.

Major Requirement | BFA

FOUND 1001-01 - STUDIO:DRAWING
Level Undergraduate
Unit Experimental and Foundation Studies
Subject Foundation Studies
Period Fall 2023
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

FOUND 1001-01

STUDIO:DRAWING

Level Undergraduate
Unit Experimental and Foundation Studies
Subject Foundation Studies
Period Fall 2023
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2023-09-06 to 2023-12-13
Times: TH | 1:40 PM - 6:00 PM; TH | 8:00 AM - 11:10 AM Instructor(s): Gwen Strahle Location(s): Waterman Building, Room 41 Enrolled / Capacity: 20 Status: Open

SECTION DESCRIPTION

Studio: Drawing is pursued in two directions: as a powerful way to investigate the world, and as an essential activity intrinsic to all artists and designers. As a primary mode of inquiry, drawing is a central means of forming questions and creating knowledge across disciplines. Through wide-ranging drawing approaches, students are prompted to work responsively and self-critically to embrace the unpredictable intersection of process, idea and media. To pursue these larger ideas, the studio becomes a laboratory of varied and challenging activities. Instructors introduce drawing as a dynamic two-dimensional record of sensory search, conceptual thought, or physical action. Students investigate materiality, imagined situations, idea generation, and the translation of the observable world. Formal and intellectual risks are encouraged during a sustained engagement with the possibilities of material, mark-making, perception, abstraction, performance, space and time. As students trust the drawing process, they become more informed about its uncharted potentials, and accept struggle as necessary and positive; they gain confidence in their own sensibilities.

Enrollment is limited to first-year Undergraduate Students.

Major Requirement | BFA

Wintersession 2024 Courses

DRAW 1509-101 - DRAWING MARATHON
Level Undergraduate
Unit Experimental and Foundation Studies
Subject Drawing
Period Wintersession 2024
Credits 6
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

DRAW 1509-101

DRAWING MARATHON

Level Undergraduate
Unit Experimental and Foundation Studies
Subject Drawing
Period Wintersession 2024
Credits 6
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2024-01-04 to 2024-02-07
Times: MTWTHF | 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM Instructor(s): Gwen Strahle Location(s): Waterman Building, Room 41 Enrolled / Capacity: 14 Status: Closed

SECTION DESCRIPTION

For the first two weeks class will be held Wednesday through Sunday, then starting the third week classes will take place Monday through Friday. A rigorous investigation of drawing from the model and/or large set-up sprawling across classroom. Deeper contact to the drawing experience through sustained exposure. Opportunity for re-invention, change. Confront problems of drawing, build on strengths. Emphasis on drawing consolidation, concentration, stamina, persistence. Regular critiques, slide talks, RISD museum trips. The goals of this course are to facilitate and maintain a continuous flow of drawing energy and examination. Students will re-examine the way they make drawings, in a progressive drawing environment. Through sustained contact with their drawing/s, students will make personal advancement.

Please contact the instructor for permission to register.

Elective

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RISD faculty member Gwen Strahle
BA, Rhode Island College
MFA, Yale University