The City of Reno Arts & Culture Commission created the City Artist position in 2019 as a way to recognize outstanding visual artists in our community. The mission of this program is to promote visual artists living in Reno, to highlight visual artists in the community, and to engage with the public through visual art. The City Artist is a one-year appointment that includes a solo exhibition in the City Hall Metro Gallery, public talks, and the curation of an exhibition.

Chris Lanier - Reno City Artist 2024

 

Chris Lanier was appointed by the Reno Arts & Culture Commission and will serve as the City Artist from January to December 2024. A solo exhibition of his work will be showcased in the Metro Gallery from March 28 to May 17, 2024.

Lanier is an artist with a background in both traditional and digital media, and a demonstrated interest in hybrid forms, having worked in multimedia performance, digital animation, web production, and comics. He is a professor of Digital Art at the University of Nevada, Reno. 

His animation has screened at Sundance and won awards at several international festivals, including the Grand Prize for Internet Animation at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. His work has been screened, exhibited, and/or performed in San Francisco, Tokyo, Vancouver, Mexico, Britain, and Serbia. A constant in Lanier’s work has been a focus with visual communication, the way visual information constitutes a language of its own, one that can both clarify and distort reality. 

He is also an essayist and critic whose art criticism has appeared in a variety of online and print publications, including Double Scoop, The Believer, HiLobrow, Furtherfield, Rhizome, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Comics Journal. He regularly writes exhibition essays for the Capital City Arts Initiative.   

During his tenure as City Artist, Lanier will also curate an exhibition at the Metro Gallery that will run from September 30-November 22, 2024. The exhibition will feature work by three Reno-based artists, Otis Boat, Kelly Chorpening, and Jessica Hayworth.   

Rossitza Todorova - Reno City Artist 2022 - 2023

Rossitza Todorova was appointed as the third Reno City Artist by the Reno Arts & Culture Commission and will serve as the City Artist from September 2022 to December 2023. A solo exhibition of her work will be showcased in the Metro Gallery from June 19 to August 4, 2023.

Rossitza Todorova is a Professor of Art at Truckee Meadows Community College and a professional artist residing in Reno, Nevada. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Nevada, Reno, in 2005 and her Master of Fine Arts degree from Arizona State University in 2013.

Her artwork has been recognized through exhibitions nationally and internationally. Todorova's art is part of the permanent collections of the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, Nevada, the John and Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art in Reno, Nevada, the Arizona State University Art Museum in Tempe, Arizona, the Tucson Museum of Art in Tucson, Arizona, the University of Arizona Art Museum in Tucson, Arizona, the Painting and Sculpture Museum in Istanbul, Turkey, and numerous private collections. She currently creates artwork from her studio, located at Artemisia Studios in Reno.

During her tenure as City Artist, Todorova will also curate an exhibition at the Metro Gallery that will run from April 24 to June 9 2023. The exhibition will feature work by Northern Nevada artists whose work addresses the high desert landscape. She will also have the opportunity to engage with constituents via public talks about her process and artwork. More information about the curated exhibition, "Between Earth and Sky: Discovering the Beauty of the Great Basin Through the Eyes of Northern Nevada Artist." 

Ruby Barrientos - Reno City Artist 2021 - 2022

Ruby Barrientos was appointed as the second Reno City Artist by the Reno Arts & Culture Commission and will serve as the City Artist from July 2021 to June 2022.

“I am grateful and honored to be this year's City of Reno's City Artist. I am excited and hopeful that my work will ignite creativity, unite communities through art, and encourage dialogue amongst diverse groups,” says Barrientos. “As City Artist I'm thrilled for the opportunity to share my latest body of work at the Metro Gallery, which will bring cultural diversity to the forefront of the gallery.”

Ruby Barrientos is a first-generation Salvadoran American artist born and raised in Reno, NV. She is an artivist and incorporates her unique artistic voice that she coined as Nuwave Mayan, a style that fuses her Salvadoran Mayan ancestry and heritage in the creation of socially relevant visual art. Her artwork was on display at the Metro Gallery in City Hall from September 13 - November 26, 2021.

During her tenure as City Artist, Barrientos curated an exhibition featuring work by visual storyteller Iyana Esters, and she also engaged with constituents via public talks about her process and artwork.

Tom Drakulich - Reno City Artist 2019 - 2020

Tom Drakulich, the inaugural City Artist, was appointed by the Reno Arts & Culture Commission and will serve as the City Artist from July 2019 through June 2020.

“I am incredibly honored, excited and proud to be selected as the City of Reno’s first City Artist,” Drakulich said. “I hope that my work as City Artist will inspire community engagement and propel future creative action to the same effect that the Reno arts and culture community has shaped me as an artist.”

Drakulich, a Reno native, graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno with his Master of Fine Arts degree in 2017. He is an interdisciplinary artist using traditional and alternative processes. His practice uses figurative abstraction to navigate the play between the familiar and the unique to consider how we deal with the unknown and explore relationships on many levels.

During his tenure as City Artist, Drakulich will also curate an exhibition featuring iconic Reno artists Fred Reid and Richard Jackson in early 2020, as well as have the opportunity to engage with constituents via public talks about his process and artwork.

“It means the world to me to have the opportunity to represent our amazing art community by sharing my most recent body of work and later curating Only Two Ways to Fire, an exhibition of ceramics by Fred and Richard, two incredibly important Reno artists,” Drakulich added. 

If you have questions or would like more information, please email publicart@reno.gov.

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