Kirsten M. Furlong

Gallery Director

MFA Boise State University
BFA University of Nebraska

As director of the Visual Arts Center (VAC), Kirsten curates and organizes exhibitions for the galleries located in the Liberal Arts Building and Hemingway Western Studies Center.  The VAC hosts exhibitions of contemporary visual art by regional, national, and international artists, students and faculty.  Kirsten teaches Art 410 Professional Practices in Art and Art 490 Senior Exhibition which are the capstone courses for the BA and BFA degrees in Visual Art, Illustration, and Art Education.

Kirsten’s current artistic practice involves engaging with a series of questions about the geography of human/animal interactions as a way of contemplating various issues about the natural world. She creates images based on outward observation of the landscape and animals and internal responses to representations of animals found in such diverse sources as historical scientific illustration to current popular culture. In the work, animals serve as emblems of nature and as metaphors for human desires that ultimately separate us from the natural world.  Recently, she has completed a series of artists residencies throughout the West in remote and wilderness locations including Denali National Park and Preserve (Alaska, 2010), Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts (Wyoming, 2011), and Signal Fire (Oregon, 2012).

Learn more about Kirsten’s work and recent and upcoming exhibitions