Award-winning artist to give lecture as part of exhibition

A renowned artist whose work is currently on display in the Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery will be at SUNY Fredonia on Friday, March 22 for a public lecture.

Laylah Ali, whose drawings are featured in the current exhibition “Is Anything the Matter: Drawings of Laylah Ali,” will appear at 4 p.m. in McEwen Hall Room 209 as part of the Department of Visual Arts and New Media’s Visiting Artist Program. The event is free and open to the public.

Ali was born in Buffalo in 1968, and now lives and works in Williamstown, MA. She is the recipient of multiple honors including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, the William H. Johnson Prize and the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston Artist Prize.

In her drawings, Ali creates her small, figurative, gouache paintings on paper with such great precision that it takes her many months to complete a single work. She meticulously plots out every aspect of her work in advance, from subject matter to the choice of color and the brushes that she will use.

Ali’s work and process were highlighted in season three of the acclaimed PBS series “Art21.” She is currently the Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Art at Williams College in  Williamstown, MA.

The Fredonia exhibition, which runs through April 14, presents almost three decades of drawings by Ali. It includes more than 100 drawings dating from 1993 to 2020. It is supported by the Fredonia College Foundation’s Carnahan Jackson Fund for the Humanities and Cathy and Jesse Marion Endowment Fund, as well as Friends of Rockefeller Arts Center.

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday from noon to 4 p.m., Friday and Saturday from noon to 6 p.m., Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. and by appointment. The gallery is located on the main level of Rockefeller Arts Center. For more information about the exhibition or to schedule a group tour, contact Marion Art Gallery Director Barbara Räcker via email or call (716) 673-4897.