“SCAD deFINE ART delivers meteoric marvels— where else can SCAD students behold the magna opera of contemporary art while networking with premier creators, curators, and cultural leaders?” said Paula Wallace, SCAD President and Founder. “This year’s festival luminesces with striking portraiture from our 2025 honoree Zanele Muholi, trailblazing tapestries from Diedrick Brackens, positively vivant woodworking from Raul De Lara, the seraphic brushstrokes of SCAD alum William Glaser Wilson, and more. Don’t miss out!”
This year’s cohort is representative of the global artistic community, drawing from cultures across geographies including Iceland, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, the U.K., and the U.S. Los Angeles-based textile artist Diedrick Brackens (b. 1989, Mexia, Texas) brings his cosmic woven tapestries into intimate dialogue with the American South, proposing conversations across the centuries on the transformative potential of art. In her longest installation to date, New York-based artist Sarah Crowner (b. 1974, Philadelphia) forms a vast, dynamic ground of custom-made terracotta tiles, welcoming viewers to stand on, walk across, or even dance around the light-refracting composition in a generous invitation to reconsider how we see the world.
In his debut solo museum exhibition, New York-based artist Raul De Lara (b. 1991, Sinaloa, Mexico) retraces his Mexican roots following a recent return to his childhood home after nearly 20 years in the U.S., combining forms from nature, modern design, and Mexican and American material culture to examine notions of nationality and identity. Creating an immersive, atmospheric environment, interdisciplinary artist and Sigur Rós lead vocalist Jónsi (b. 1975, Reykjavik, Iceland) centers the most universal and original musical instrument — the human voice — offering a visceral encounter in which to ponder our innate form of communication.
