Campus NewsHope Art Professor Hosts “Thick and Thin” Art Exhibit Jan. 16-Feb. 17
Lisa Walcott — Hope College associate professor of art — will host a four-week art exhibit at the De Pree Art Gallery on campus from Jan. 16-Feb. 17, 2026. She’ll also open the exhibit by hosting an artist talk on Friday, Jan. 16 in Graves Hall (in Winants Auditorium) at 5:30 p.m., followed by a reception at De Pree Art Gallery at 6:30 p.m.
Titled “Thick and Thin,” Walcott’s work speaks both to the shifting line quality
in the drawings and sculptures, and to the tenacious, sometimes messy process of working
through hard phases such as spinning your wheels, finding moments of rest and trying
again. These pieces hold tension while looking for balance — reflecting the ways we
mend, reorganize and manage everyday instability.
Walcott’s work grows out of scavenging, collecting and pulling apart familiar materials, and then putting them back together in ways that feel a little off-kilter (playful, precarious and always negotiating between order and chaos). She has an interest in that space where things multitask, strain or get stretched thin, where intention and effort don’t always line up with results.
About the Artist
Lisa Walcott is the associate professor of art at Hope College, and was also named the inaugural recipient of the college’s Billy Mayer Endowed Professorship in Sculpture or Ceramics. The professorship was established by the late Dr. Richard and Margaret Kruizenga in honor and memory of Mayer, a longtime Hope College art faculty.
Walcott is also a sculptor and installation artist whose work engages the poetics of everyday life through kinetic forms, object-based constructions and drawing. Her practice explores domesticity, labor and the feminine experience, utilizing familiar materials such as cords, bristles, insulation, shelf brackets and fan motors to create precarious — often humorous — environments. Rooted in repetition and slow gestures, her work animates the unseen tension that underpins the routines of care and maintenance.
She has exhibited nationally and continues to evolve her practice through hands-on experimentation, craft-based inquiry, and a persistent curiosity about movement, stillness and the invisible systems that hold things together.