Interdisciplinary artist Chip Thomas will present at the next Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist Lecture on April 6.

The lecture is at 5:30 p.m. in Richards Hall, Room 15. It is free and open to the public with an accessible virtual option, via Zoom.

Thomas, also referred to as “jetsonorama,” is a photographer, public artist and physician, who has been working in a small clinic on the Navajo Nation since 1987. There, he coordinates the Painted Desert Project, which he describes as a community-building dialog that manifests as a constellation of murals painted by artists from the Navajo Nation, as well as from around the world.

His own public artwork consists of enlarged black and white photographs pasted onto structures along the roadside, primarily on the Navajo Nation. His motivation is to reflect back to the community and the love they’ve shared with him over the past years.

Thomas was a 2018 Kindle Project gift recipient, and in 2020, he was one of a handful of artists chosen by the United Nations to recognize the 75th anniversary of the UN’s founding. Selected artists are to generate work that contributes to the envisioning and shaping of a more resilient and sustainable future. Thomas spent 2021 working collaboratively to create art that is a community-based response to the pandemic.

The remaining lecture in the series is on April 13 by David Lubin. Lubin, a film and art historian, will present a lecture titled, “Edward Hopper and Classic American Cinema.” He is the Charlotte C. Weber Professor of Art at Wake Forest University.

Underwritten by the Hixson-Lied Endowment with additional support from other sources, the series enriches the culture of the state by providing a way for Nebraskans to interact with luminaries in the fields of art, art history and design. Each visiting artist or scholar spends one to three days on campus to meet with classes, participate in critiques and give demonstrations.

For more information on the series, contact the School of Art, Art History and Design at 402-472-5522 or e-mail schoolaahd@unl.edu.