Teaching Color Theory // Lauren Whearty // Eric Hibit

CAA Conversations

Lauren Whearty and Eric Hibit are artists, curators, and educators, who both think deeply about the importance of color as a subject in art, society, and in how they teach painting and design courses. Color is a vital component in foundational artistic studies, it also plays an important role in culture, technology, history, science, and more. In this episode Lauren & Eric will discuss the ways they use and think about color in their studios, Eric’s “Color Theory for Dummies” book, book recommendations, and how they each approach color in the classroom. Lauren Whearty is an artist, educator, and curator living and working in Philadelphia, PA. She received her MFA from Ohio State University, and her BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University. She has been a Co-Director at Ortega y Gasset Projects, an artist-run curatorial collective and non-profit in Brooklyn, NY since 2017. Lauren has attended residencies such as Yale’s Summer School of Art through the Ellen BattelStoeckel Fellowship, The Vermont Studio Center, Soaring Gardens Artist Retreat, and the Golden Foundation Artist Residency. She has recently received grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, and Joseph Roberts Foundation. Lauren also received the President’s Creative Research and Innovation Grant from University of the Arts, to develop work for her first solo exhibit which was recently at Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia. Lauren currently teaches 2D Design, Color, Painting & Drawing courses at University of the Arts and Tyler School of Art & Architecture in Philadelphia. Eric Hibit (born Rochester, NY) is a visual artist based in New York City. He attended the Corcoran College of Art + Design (BFA,1998) and Yale University School of Art (MFA, 2003). In New York, he has exhibited at Morgan Lehman Gallery, Dinner Gallery, Deanna Evans Projects, My Pet Ram, One River School of Art + Design, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Underdonk Gallery, Anna Kustera Gallery, Max Protetch Gallery, and elsewhere. He has exhibited nationally at Hexum Gallery in Montpelier, VT, Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC, Wege Center for the Arts at Maharishi University in Fairfield, IA, Geoffrey Young Gallery in Great Barrington, MA, The University of Vermont, Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, CA and internationally in Sweden, France and Norway. His work has been covered by the Washington Post, The Village Voice, Hyperallergic, Newsweek, New York Times and New York Post. Hibit has taught studio art at Drexel University, The Cooper Union, Suffolk County Community College, 92NY, Tyler School of Art, NYU and Hunter College. Artist residencies include Terra Foundation in Giverny, France (2003), and Kingsbrae International Residency for the Arts (2019) and Green Olives Arts in Tetouan, Morocco (2019). Publications include Dear Hollywood Writers, with poet Geoffrey Young (Suzy Solidor Editions, 2017) and Paintings and Fables with Wayne Koestenbaum, a limited edition artist’s book (2017), and Color Theory for Dummies, published by Wiley (2022).  He is currently Co-Director of Ortega y Gasset Projects, an artist-run gallery based in Brooklyn, where he has curated exhibitions since 2014.