The Susan Bergman Gurrentz ‘56 Art Gallery kicked off its first gallery showcase at its new location in Woodland Room 103 on Thursday, Sept. 25. 

With the start of Homecoming Week, the space is filled with art from the Chatham University faculty. The Faculty Art Exhibition currently has works from 21 different faculty members on Chatham’s Shadyside campus. Each piece in the exhibition is representative of what each faculty member has been working on and focusing on.

Assistant Professor and Gallery Manager James Louks has two collage pieces in the exhibition titled “America is the Greatest Country in the United States.” The pieces include Americana imagery from the ‘50s and ‘60s, representing and commenting on the intersections of capitalism, Christianity and American exceptionalism.

“I think they’re sort of funny, but they’re also depressing situations that I’m trying to create to where it’s a critique of where we are now, based on a lot of the language and imagery that I would say never existed. It was an invention and in construction,” Louks said.

Kristen Shaeffer, the chair of the Art, Design and Immersive Media department, has a film in the exhibition with footage of the Mayview State Hospital, an abandoned psychiatric hospital. Her father worked in state mental hospitals doing maintenance for his entire career, and he was hired to do maintenance by the owners of the abandoned property before it was demolished. 

“What was important to me was learning more about who he is beyond my family dynamic. Because when you’re a kid, your parents don’t tell you a whole lot about what happened at the psychiatric hospital that day, right?” Shaeffer said. “There’s not a whole lot to talk about in some of those specifics in the same way that you can have frank conversations about that much later in your life when you’re an adult hanging out with your dad in an abandoned hospital.”

The gallery made a new home in Room 103 following summer renovations at Woodland Hall. Previously, this was used as a classroom.These renovations were announced during the 2025 spring semester and coincided with the campus bookstore’s relocation to the former gallery location. 

“I really think from the beginning of the process that it was collaborative in the entire department, that when it came to making decisions about the space, like materials, for example. I think all of us had taken part in the conversation about those pieces and parts,” Shaeffer said.

It was important to the team that the new gallery be an improvement over the last one.

“There was input from everybody to see how we can make this space an upgrade as opposed to just sort of a lateral move across the hall,” Louks said.

The team had experienced some problems with the old gallery’s design, regarding seating locations, an excess of windows and the old flooring. It presented several issues when it came to hanging art for exhibitions.

To mediate the roadblocks posed by the excess of windows, light-blocking curtains that can be projected on have been installed, allowing for a medium of art to be shown in the gallery that the old space didn’t allow. They also have two movable walls that can act as a buffer for excess light.

The flooring in the new gallery brings additional enhancements.

“The floor is an upgrade. When we had a lot of people in the old gallery space because of the wood floor, it would really ring quite a bit. If a lot of people were there, it would be loud and not really a great experience. We had a pretty large turnout [at the opening ceremony], I would say consistently a lot of people in the gallery, and it was not loud. It was so comfortable. So, I think that was a major upgrade,” Louks said.

The process of getting the new gallery ready for the fall semester wasn’t an easy feat. The team faced dilemmas when it came to the lighting in the studio; their supply chain was unable to obtain the permanent lighting system before the opening ceremony. Krya Tucker, the head of Interior Architecture, worked with the contractors and the rest of the team to obtain a temporary lighting solution.  

Moving the African art collections also posed a hurdle. Head of Museum Studies Dr. Beth Roark, who oversees Chatham’s African art collection, was hands-on with the process at first, but had to take leave near the beginning of the process. This led to a mix of faculty and students overseeing the move of the collections to the new art gallery.

The department is placing importance on student involvement, both with the help they received in moving the gallery and for the future of the gallery.

“I think that in the department we really feel like it’s important that this gallery is not just an exhibition space, but like a classroom in a way, right? Like a learning space,” Shaeffer said.

The Faculty Art Exhibition will have its closing ceremony on Saturday, October 4, from 3 to 5 p.m. The next exhibition will be a collaboration with the Women’s Institute for their 10-year anniversary. It will be a multimedia show centered around Kip Dawson, a Chatham alum, highlighting her labor activism. The exhibition will include interviews, shirts and screen-printed designs. 

“I really appreciate when faculty and students from other departments show up, like folks from the broader Chatham community see what it is that we’re doing, and that’s a great part of it. It was lovely,” Shaeffer said.