Donald Vanauken

Artist Bio

Donald W. VanAuken

Originally from Michigan, Donald W. VanAuken’s most current work deals with location and one’s place within an environment. Having recently purchased a 1915 farmhouse; the artist and his wife have begun to explore this concept of “location” and it’s relationship to how and what one creates. Artifacts from the past such as, found photographs and previous owners random junk, as well as encounters with native wildlife have spun off into a narrative of this environment. Animals and relics of the past are often used as an allegorical means to describe situations, quandaries and everyday experiences that can describe a place.

As an art educator VanAuken has served in secondary education, Museum interpretation, as a professor of art and new media and as a Teaching Associate with the School of Art at Ohio University where he received his M.F.A. in Painting, in 2007. He is currently the newest faculty member of the Visual Arts Department at Olivet College beginning in the fall of 2015.

2007 MFA, Painting
Ohio University, Athens, OH
Dean’s List 2005-2007

2003, 2004 Summer Residency, Professional Development
Campbell Center For Historic and Art Preservation Studies
Mt. Carroll, IL

1997 Post Baccalaureate Studies, Printmaking/Painting
Accademia Bella di Arti, Perugia, Italy

1997 BFA, Illustration
Kendall College of Art and Design, Grand Rapids, MI

Selected Artist Exhibition Record * Indicates solo exhibit

2017 Kalamazoo Institute of The Arts, 2017 KIA Area Show, Kalamazoo, MI, Spring 2017

Kellogg Community College, Davidson Building, Central Gallery,
Faculty Biennial Exhibition, February 2017

Ann Arbor Art Center, Printmaking: Now Exhibition,
Ann Arbor, MI, January 2017

South West Michigan Printmakers Exhibition
Kresge Foundation Art Gallery, Riethmiller Blackman Art Building, Olivet College, Olivet, MI January 2017

2016 South West Michigan Printmakers,
10th Annual SWMP Exhibition, Kalamazoo Book Arts Gallery, Kalamazoo, MI, Fall 2016

2016 Kalamazoo Institute of The Arts, 2016 KIA Area Show, Kalamazoo, MI, Spring 2016

2015 Kresge Foundation Art Gallery, This Must be The Place* Riethmiller Blackman Art Building, Olivet College, Olivet, MI Fall, 2015

Water Street Gallery, Woodcut Prints by D. W. VanAuken*Kalamazoo, MI, June 2015

2014 Kellogg Community College, Davidson Building, Central Gallery,
Faculty Biennial Exhibition,
Fall, 2014

2013 DeVries Gallery, Gates of the North*
Central Campus, Kellogg Community College, Battle Creek, MI, Fall, 2013

2013 Art Prize 2013
Grand Rapids Public Museum, Grand Rapids, MI,
September – O...