Hartnett Gallery

Current Exhibition

Dirty Laundry- Artists of the Art and Art History Department

Artists: Cary Adams, Stephanie Ashenfelder, Joshua Enck, Aaron Delehanty, Heather Layton, Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge, Mizin Shin, Allen Topolski, Aster Topolski-Diaz, Emily Tyman & Renee Yu Jin
Dates: November 6, 2025 - Jan 26, 2026
Reception & Artist Talks: November 6, 2025 4 P.M. - 6 P.M.

Upcoming

Every Absence

Artists: Diana Jean Puglisi
Dates: February 5 to March 10, 2026

  • Exhibition Statement:
    The Hartnett Gallery is pleased to present Diana Jean Puglisi’s solo exhibition Every Absence, on view from February 5 to March 10, 2026. Through a coalescence of hard and soft materials, Puglisi’s works in Every Absence are the embodiment of contradiction—protection and vulnerability, nurture and depletion, guilt and grace. Within their tactile forms, softness is pressed, punctured, and held in tension. The exhibition includes textile-based wall and sculptural works from her “Femme Body Cushions” series—sensorial forms that act as surrogates for female bodies, their parts, and functions.
     
    The works feature hard and soft stuffed forms, hand-sharpened pins of differing sizes, hot-glue cameos, and lace casts made of acrylic paint—each part can be seen as the protagonist or antagonist creating, mending, or wounding the work. The sculptures invite touch alongside off-kilter structures that resist it, and mirror the oscillations of hormonal flux and maternal identity. They enact transformation through textures that crack, glitter, and bruise on surfaces that are pierced, stitched, and laid bare.
    Every Absence is anchored in Puglisi’s matrilineal lineage and lived experience with chronic thyroid disease, and confronts the porous boundaries between health and illness, self and other, control and surrender. The work’s language is invisible and intimate, spoken amid spaces carved out by transformation. The work explores the emotional terrain of motherhood, chronic illness, and bodily autonomy—spaces marked as much by presence as by loss, absence, and unspoken labor. What emerges is a meditation on the fragmented, resilient, and relational body

Past Exhibitions

Interiors

Artists: Dustin Paden & Madylan Coleman

Dates: September 19, 2025 - October 24, 2025

Trans Futurity

Artists: Curated by Bethany Fincher, Emily Broad, Bridgette Fleming- Artist include: Rian Ciela Hammond,H Boone, Eli Brown, Rio Sofia, and Abdi Osman

Dates: July 30, 2025- September 12, 2025

Senior Thesis Show

Artists: Midas Briggs, Ella Smith and Fatale Seck

Student Juried Show

Artists: Various Artists


Information

  • Hartnett Gallery Mission

    Enrich the campus and local community by providing opportunities in the Campus Center to experience diverse expressions of culture through visual art

    Cultivate skills related to exhibition, curatorial, and preparator practices

    Facilitate sustainable opportunities for artists/students through the creation, presentation, and understanding of contemporary art via exhibitions and educational programs

  • Contact Us

    For the Hartnett Gallery:  hartnett@mail.rochester.edu

    For other inquiries:  wcsa@rochester.edu

  • Hours of Operation

    For the Harnett Gallery's standard hours, please see Wilson Common's building hours. The standard hours are only during an exhibition. The Gallery is closed when there is no exhibit on display or event scheduled. Hours may change or fluctuate during academic breaks.

  • Gallery Space Information
    Interior glass doors of Hartnett GalleryPicture taken from a corner of an empty Hartnett GalleryEmpty Hartnett gallery take from the entrance platform
    Empty Hartnett gallery with entrance on the right and the side door on the leftEmpty Hartnett Gallery from inside the entrance

    Hartnett Gallery Floor Plan

    Installation and De-installation Timetable

    • The dates scheduled for an exhibition need to include time for the installation and the deinstallation of the exhibition.
    • Installation can be expected to take one to three days for less complicated projects. More complicated installations will need to budget more time.
    • At the end of deinstallation Hartnett must be returned to the condition it was in at the beginning of the exhibition period.
    • If works are not conventionally framed or mounted all aspects of their installation must be pre-approved.
    • The Hartnett Advisory Board must give approval prior to installation if any work fits the following criteria:
      • Weighs more than 50 lbs.
      • Has a dimension exceeding 40”
      • Requires any extraordinary management or installation (i.e. suspended from the ceiling)
      • Is to be placed on the balcony

    Wall Treatment

    • Exhibitions must request permission to paint the walls from the Hartnett Advisory Board

    Important prohibitions

    • The use of double-stick tape or any means of adhesion apart from the use of Quakehold® or GlueDots® (brand specific) is prohibited.
    • No exhibition is allowed to block the entrance to the Gallery or the stairs inside.
    • The floor cannot be painted or altered.
    • Sharpies/permanent markers, ink, watercolor, or stickers are not allowed to be placed directly on Gallery walls.

    Lighting

    • Lighting cannot be adjusted without proper training from the Advisory Committee.
  • Submitting a Proposal

    The Hartnett Gallery Advisory Board welcomes proposals for events/performances/exhibitions to be hosted in Hartnett Gallery. Events and performances are encouraged to occur in the space during an exhibition, assuming an exhibition's set up can accommodate your proposal's needs. All events, performances, and exhibitions must be sponsored by a University of Rochester department or student organization. If your department or student organization is interested in hosting an event or exhibition in the Gallery, you can fill out the Hartnett Gallery Proposal Form.

    If you have any questions please reach out to Aaron Delehanty