Professor Mary Carothers promoted to full professor

The UofL Board of Trustees has approved the promotion of Mary Carothers to full professor. Congratulations! Professor Mary Carothers joined the faculty of the Department of Fine Arts in 1998. Her artworks are often site-specific, using a socially engaged process as a way to bridge memory and identity with a certain place or group of people. Carothers’ collaborative project Frozen Car (2008) was featured on the Discovery Channel, Floating Seeds (2013), juried by COD+A (Commission of Design and Architecture), received an international merit award, and her sculptural commission Beneath the Surface (2015) was recognized by Americans for the Arts as one of the 38 most outstanding public art projects created in 2015.

Beneath the Surface was recreated in 2016 and is now part of the Great Meadows contemporary art collection owned by Alfred Shands. Professor Carothers has presented her research at conferences in Tunis, Tunisia; Prato, Italy; Prague, Czech Republic, Glasgow, Scotland; Oxford, England and at numerous locations in the United States including Michigan Technological University and Pratt Institute. Additionally, Professor Carothers has taken her students abroad to study in Italy, Germany and Panama. She has received grants from agencies including The Johnson Foundation, The Humana Foundation, Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Frederic L. Morgan Fund and The Great Meadows Foundation. In the last ten years, Professor Carothers has participated in over 50 exhibitions, nation-wide and internationally. Professor Carothers is particularly noted for interdisciplinary collaborations with other colleges, businesses and institutions throughout the region.

Examples of collaborations include Ghost Signs with Ekstrom Libraries, Empower with St. Josephs Children’s Home and Shelter with TARC (Transit Authority of River City.) Most recently 36 Miles, Revealing the Ohio, a collaboration between Hite Art Institute’s Photography students, Gresham Smith and Partners and University of Kentucky, won a Communications Award from the American Association of Landscape Architects.

Beneath the Surface (2016)

Floating Seeds (2013)

The Frozen Car (collaboration with Professor Sue Wrbican, George Mason University, 2008)