John Umphlett
John Umphlett MFA '99 is an innovator and inquisitive thinker, consistently searching for new experimental processes. Entranced within material parameters and properties, he finds ways to fuse those findings with the ephemeral human body.
Biography
Umphlett's work has crossed between many mediums including, but not excluded to, installation, video, performance, and drawing. He has shown at Emory Community Art Center / University of Maine Farmington; Southern Vermont Art Center, VT; Collar Works, Troy, NY; Franconia Sculpture Park, MN; Bennington Museum, VT, EMPAC, Rensselaer, NY; and Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT to name a few. Umphlett has also worked with numerous artists, architects, and engineers in New York and around the world, as a fabricator and designer producing work for Brooklyn Museum; Syracuse University Art Museum; Shaffer Art Building; Moody Center of the Arts; Rice University; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN; Fowler Museum at UCLA; Simone Subal Gallery, NYC; San Jose Museum of Art; PAFA, Philadelphia, PA; Viva Arte Viva, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy; Kunsthallen, Brandts, Odense, Denmark; Yokohama Triennale, Japan; and Guimet Museum, Paris, France.
Umphlett previously served as the Technical Instructor in Visual Arts at Bennington College from 2000-2023. In this role, he supervised the installation and lighting of numerous exhibitions and served as an inventor and problem-solver for student projects across the Visual Arts disciplines from designing cameras in photography to fabricating revolving projection installations for live performances. He also taught courses in the technical aspects of sculpture as well as more conceptual courses in an interdisciplinary style. BFA, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1996; MFA, Bennington College, 1999.
Umphlett joined the Bennington faculty in Fall 2023.
