Visiting Artist, John Umphlett will give an artist talk at Vermont Studio Center on May 7, 2026 at 8:00 pm ET. This event is free and open to the public.

John Umphlett was born in southern New Jersey in 1974. He graduated with a BFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University and continued his education at Bennington College, where he graduated with an MFA in 1999. His work has crossed between many mediums including, but not excluded to: installation, video, performance and drawing. John has shown at Emory Community Art Center at the University of Maine Farmington; Southern Vermont Art Center, VT; Collar Works in Troy NY; Franconia Sculpture Park in MN; Bennington Museum, VT; and Empac, Rensselaer NY, among many other institutions.

John 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. He describes the physical world as a creator of conceptual boundaries on the brink of illusion. He is searching for a connection to something that actually doesn’t exist in this material world; a fluid fleeting Spirit that has shaping principles of something externally internal. The work simmers on the surface of vulnerabilities -- oxygen, sweat, criticism, empathy, hate, language, sarcasm and forgiveness.