Dear Colleagues,

I write to share the news that Lauz Bechelli has been appointed as interim director of the Visual Arts Center, effective Monday, Aug. 7, while we conduct a search to fill this role permanently.

Bechelli (M.F.A., Studio Art, 2020) is an artist and arts administrator, and she has taught drawing courses in the Department of Art and Art History. Bechelli is the recipient of a nine-month Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellowship Award in Vadodara, India, where she collaborated with the department of Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit at MSU Baroda and Carbon Craft of Hubli.

She worked as interim gallery director for the Austin nonprofit gallery Women and Their Work, where she facilitated the opening of their new permanent space on Cesar Chavez in 2020. While there, she oversaw their inaugural exhibition, Homecoming, Clay Matters, and shows featuring Rehab El Sadek, Jade Walker and Lindy Chambers.

Bechelli teaches painting and drawing at Les Tapies School of Art and Architecture in St. Pierreville and at the University of Texas at Austin. Bechelli's personal work utilizes painting to attenuate found objects, providing perceptual opportunities for subject matter to seep into object matter. Her paintings are fundamentally related to the three-dimensionality of the frame and call to expressionist gestures but with a more material foundation. 

She attended the Penland School of Craft residency, Chautauqua residency and the Priyasri residency in Vadodara, India. She has exhibited at Casa De Los Tres Mundos in Granada, Nicaragua, the Chester Art Center in Chester, England, the Visual Arts Center in Austin, the Sense Gallery in Washington D.C., Jonathan Hopson Gallery in Houston, Good Luck Have Fun Gallery in Austin and Space Studios in Vadodara, India.

Please join me in welcoming Lauz Bechelli to this interim role.

Sincerely,