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Elona Van Gent

Professor

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Photograph of Elona Van Gent

Biography

Curriculum Vitae
  • M.F.A. (Sculpture), Tyler School of Art — Temple University, 1989
  • B.A. (English), Hope College, 1984

During her career as an educator and visual artist, Elona Van Gent has taught at Grand Valley State University, Kendall College of Art and Design and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She also served for two years at SIGGraph as coordinator of 3-D technologies in the Studio.

Van Gent is known for her use of three-dimensional digital technologies and investigation of themes encountered at the intersection of art, science and technology. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally in exhibitions at the Exploratorium Museum of San Francisco, the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan, Wood Street Gallery in Chicago, the Silicon Gallery of Philadelphia, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in Russia, Roda Sten in Sweden, Australia’s University of Technology, and FNAC Digitale in Paris. She is also part of the International Rapid Prototyping Sculpture Exhibition, a three-year traveling installation that showcases leading sculptors who use rapid prototyping technologies in their art process.

Van Gent has been awarded two large-scale commissions from Grand Valley State University and was a finalist in the 2004 Frederick Meijer Sculpture Competition. She has received two major research grants from Grand Valley State University and a Visual Artist Grant from the Michigan Council for the Arts. In addition, she has presented her work as a visiting artist at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Miami University in Ohio, Valand College of Fine Arts, Gothenburg University, Kendall College of Art and Design, and Arizona State University as well as numerous International sculpture conferences. Her work is represented in the collections of Herman Miller, Inc., Alpha Genesis, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, and Grand Valley State University.

Van Gent’s work has been included and reviewed in Sculpture Magazine, Grand Rapids Magazine, the Detroit News, News of Saint Petersburg, the Gothenburg Times, and the International Sculpture Center website. A catalog accompanying the exhibition Artifacts and Anomalies: Cabinets of Wonder and the Play of Technology was published in 2003 by Peter the Great Museum of St. Petersburg, Russia. The Grand Rapids Museum published a brochure for Implements of Invention in 1999.