East | West Galleries at TWU

Mission Statement

The East | West Galleries at Texas Woman’s University are dedicated to understanding and promoting contemporary art as a tool and a catalyst for education. The East | West Galleries consistently present exhibitions and programming that examine the cultural and social contexts around us, challenge contemporary perceptions of art making, and provide a framework for intellectual and creative inquiry.

By inviting established and emerging contemporary artists, designers, critics and curators of national and international stature from off-campus as well as within, and setting them in direct dialogue with students and local audiences, the East | West Galleries establish immediate relevancy in the University and community.

The East | West Galleries vision is well-aligned with Texas Woman’s University’s commitment to “educate and empower our students, especially ensuring opportunities for women and minorities, to become leaders in our society through excellence in the visual arts.”

Gallery Description

Two 1700 sq. ft. galleries complement the east and west wings of the Fine Arts Building offering large, well lit spaces for artists exhibitions. Each year internationally, nationally and regionally recognized artists are invited to exhibit works in solo and group exhibitions, offer lectures to the University students and local community and lead critiques of student works in class and studios.
The galleries are also used as exhibition spaces for M.F.A, M.A. and B.F.A. student qualifying exhibitions at the end of each semester.
Gallery Floorplans: East Gallery [pdf] / West Gallery [pdf]

Gallery Hours: Monday to Friday / 9am-4pm

Located in the Fine Arts Building on the TWU/Denton campus at the corner of Texas & Oakland streets. (map)

For more information regarding exhibitions or to be added to our email invitation list, please contact:
Vance Wingate - Gallery Coordinator
940-898-2533

Alumni of TWU, please contact the Dept. of Visual Arts, or Alumni Relations to stay in touch and up to date with all of the events at TWU.
Visual Arts Office / Alumni Relations

Submission Guidelines and Policies

Artists are welcome to submit work samples and exhibition proposals for the TWU East l West Galleries. We are looking for all types of artwork for exhibitions, especially work that will advance the educational directive of our existing programs and the university as a whole. Artists working in traditional, alternative, and new media or working with interactive and web-based platforms are also encouraged to submit proposals and will be considered for exhibition. But in order to help you, please note the following.

Before you submit materials:

Take some time look around our website and see what we have shown in the past and what Texas Woman’s University’s mission is as a state school and primarily women’s university. This won’t tell you what we are looking for in future programming, since East l West Galleries and the Visual Arts Department goals and vision are in constant evolution and improvement, but it will give you some idea of what our general programming sensibilities are; innovative, contemporary and non-commercial are good guideposts.

Unsolicited Submissions in general

The majority of what will be chosen to be exhibited at East l West Galleries will not come to us through unsolicited submissions, though there are always shows each year that do come to us this way. This is just how it is. Most work gets shown because we have come across it through the ‘art world’ systems of exhibitions, curators, artists and educators who bring artists and exhibitions to our attention. This is not meant to suggest that you not submit materials. It’s just that, unlike some other alternative, coop and non-commercial spaces, we do not generally program our gallery through submissions. Since we are an academic gallery, our spaces also have a large portion of dates scheduled for student exhibitions, graduate exhibitions, and reviews. Therefore we have limited space available each semester for outside exhibitions.
We will closely review unsolicited proposals, but since we are a busy, non-profit university art space and we take pride in looking carefully at all proposals that come in, it can sometimes take us a while to get back to you. We aren’t ignoring you, or being rude; it’s part of the process of programming an art space in an academic setting.

Visual Arts, New Media Submissions

We are a Mac operation; anything not easily viewed on a Mac platform will not likely get looked at very quickly. Sorry.
Resumes, statements, websites, bios and press clippings are all helpful but not nearly as important as good quality jpegs on CD-ROM or DVD. DO NOT send original materials; we can’t be responsible for the handling or return of original materials!
If your work is media-based or you feel a web version of your portfolio is the best way to view the work then send it along, but be aware of the following:

• Your work should be easily viewable in a browser (Safari, Firefox, Camino), or should auto-launch in something we are likely to already have running such as PowerPoint or Safari.
• Do not email image files! Any email with attachments that are not from an already identified sender, will be deleted by the university’s protection systems.