Below are short biographies of each artist selected for The River Project 2015 along with images of their sketches/concepts for the exhibit. 

Matthew Hincman

Matthew Hincman is an Associate Professor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, Massachusetts, and interim-Dean of Academic Administration. Matthew teaches in the Fine Arts 3D Department with a concentration in Sculpture. Matthew is interested in holistic approaches to making and educating, celebrating the acquisition of critical thinking skills through manual labor and the making of objects.

Jim Lawton

James Lawton earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Constructive Design at Florida State University, Tallahassee in 1976 and MFA in Ceramics at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge in 1980. Lawton joined the faculty at the College of Visual and Performing Arts at UMass Dartmouth in 1998 where he is currently Professor of Ceramics and Chair of the Artisanry Department.    Prior appointments include the School of the Art Institute of Chicago 1992-98, where he was tenured Professor, as well as visiting professorships at Alfred University, Louisiana State University, and University of Michigan. Additionally, he leads workshops and presents lectures across the country and abroad.

Lawton is on the Board of Trustees of the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, an artist residency located in Newcastle, Maine and has served previously on the Board of Studio Potter Magazine. He has received numerous awards, including two National Endowment Visual Arts Fellowships, the South Carolina Artist Fellowship Grant, and academic research grants from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Lawton’s work is in the collections of the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; L.A. County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; the Museum of Ceramic Art, Alfred, NY; and the Icheon World Ceramic Center, South Korea, among others; and in numerous private collections.

Lawton maintains studios in South Dartmouth, MA and Bluffton, SC with his wife, the Printmaker, Yvonne Leonard.

Isabel Mattia

Raised in the woodworking studios of her artist parents, Isabel Mattia has always had an interest in material explorations. She received her Bachelor’s Degree from Brown University in May 2011, graduating with a double concentration in Visual Art (with honors) and Africana Studies. Her work has been exhibited in the New Bedford Art Museum, The Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Arts at Brown University, and the David Winton Bell Gallery. She is a recipient of the Marlene Malik Grant for Sculpture and the Roberta Joslin Award for Excellence in Art.

Mattia works in her space within Smokestack Studios in Fall River, Massachusetts. She teaches welding at the Steel Yard in Providence, RI, and is a teaching and artist assistant for Sculptor Paul Myoda. From 2011-2015, she was Dedee Shattuck’s lead curator. She has also worked as an artist’s assistant for sculptor and textile artist Charlotte Hamlin. She has led arts workshops for young artists at Curvin-McCabe school in Pawtucket, Rhode Island and for incarcerated women in the Adult Correctional Institute in Cranston, Rhode Island.

Liz Shepherd

Liz Shepherd is a sculptor and printmaker. Her sculpture has been exhibited widely in New England including a permanent installation at Boston Children’s Hospital. She has had three solo sculpture exhibitions at the Boston Sculpture Gallery. The Trustman Gallery at Simmons College hosted a solo show of her work in 2013. Her prints are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Edinburgh (Scotland) College of Art, Syracuse University, Boston Public Library and numerous corporate and private collections. In 2013/14 Shepherd participated in a group printmaking show at the Hanoi (Vietnam) Contemporary Arts Center, the Q’orikancha Museum in Cusco, Peru and the Icelandic Printmakers Association in Reykjavik. In 2014 she was awarded a Traveling Fellowship from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.

Originally from NYC, Shepherd has lived in the Boston area since 1981, where she and her husband, Ben, raised two children. She received her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 2006. Shepherd owns a large collaborative printmaking studio in Boston’s South End. She is a part-time visiting faculty member at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She also teaches occasional classes and workshops in her studio.

She is a member of the Executive Committee at the Boston Sculptors Gallery and is the President of the Boston Printmakers.

Jenine Shereos

Jenine Shereos was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1978. Jenine is a sculptor and installation artist specializing in fiber and textile processes. She has an MFA from California State University, Long Beach and currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Shereos’ work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, and included in exhibitions in France, Italy, Switzerland, Poland , Portugal, Hungary, Austria, and Canada. Her work has also been published in the Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, Frame Magazine, Make Magazine, Textiel Plus Magazine, and Mary Schoeser’s recent publication; Textiles: The Art of Mankind. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2015 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Crafts, first place in “Small Expressions,” at the Long Beach Museum of Art, second prize at the Triennial of Mini-textiles in Angers, France and the Drawing Prize at the 20th Drawing Show at the Boston Center for the Arts’ Mills Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts.Jenine Shereos is a sculptor and installation artist specializing in fiber and textile processes. She has an MFA from California State University, Long Beach, and currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts.