{"id":195207,"date":"2023-02-15T17:10:15","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T22:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=195207"},"modified":"2023-02-16T12:26:48","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T17:26:48","slug":"introducing-uconn-healths-new-art-curator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2023\/02\/introducing-uconn-healths-new-art-curator\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing UConn Health\u2019s New Art Curator"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andre Rochester says he wasn\u2019t quite sure what to expect when someone he knew from the Greater Hartford Arts Council encouraged him to look into UConn Health\u2019s open art curator position.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad that I did, because I see an opportunity to exercise this curation muscle that I\u2019ve been building for these last 15 years in a totally different space than what I\u2019m used to,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Rochester is UConn Health\u2019s third art curator, succeeding Linda Webber, who retired last year. He is active in the local arts community and his own portfolio includes acrylic paintings, oil paintings, and charcoal and pastel drawings.<\/p>\n

\"acrylic
“Contemplation” is an acrylic on canvas by Andre Rochester, who recently joined UConn Health as curator of its art collection. (Image used with artist’s permission)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He\u2019s spent the first few weeks familiarizing himself with UConn Health\u2019s art collection<\/a>, which has grown to more than 2,500 pieces over four decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a mini museum,\u201d Rochester says. \u201cI\u2019m going to make it my job to heighten the awareness of the collection and get people more interested in looking around as they walk around the facilities. There\u2019s plenty to look at, so I want to make sure that folks are noticing it, and that they\u2019re interacting with the space. I\u2019m also looking at how many blank walls we have and what we could possibly do there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rochester holds a degree in studio art from Charter Oak State college and a master\u2019s in organizational leadership from Quinnipiac University.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

People come here to get better… and I think if there\u2019s something beautiful in the room, it might just help out with that. — Andre Rochester<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He says directing the UConn Health art collection\u2019s future will require study of its past.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to understand the story behind UConn Health\u2019s collection,\u201d Rochester says. \u201cWhat are the commonalities between some of these artists who have donated work?\u201d<\/p>\n

And it didn\u2019t take long for him to make some impressive discoveries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that we have a Frank Stella piece, and we have a Sol LeWitt piece here, that gives it some significance,\u201d Rochester says. \u201cThese are not just run-of-the-mill artists who were hobbyists in their lifetime. These are people who did actually receive a lot of accolades and were in fact world-famous in their time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Andre
Andre Rochester is UConn Health’s new art curator. (Photo provided by Andre Rochester)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rochester\u2019s vision for UConn Health\u2019s art collection is to have it enhance the healing and teaching environment by contributing to how people feel in the space, not only for the patients who are trying to get better and visitors who may be anxious, but also for the people who are providing care and those who are learning from them.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople come here to get better,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019re in pain, you want to think about everything but that pain, and I think if there\u2019s something beautiful in the room, it might just help out with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rochester lives in East Hartford with his wife, Shawnee, and their one-month-old son, Andre Jr. Beyond UConn Health, his involvement in the Greater Hartford arts community includes serving on the boards of the Windsor Art Center and Connecticut Arts Alliance; as program manager of the 224 EcoSpace, a hub for entrepreneurs in the creative field; and as program manager of the Artist of Color Accelerate fellowship, from which he graduated last year as part of the inaugural cohort.<\/p>\n

He is also part of the 2022-23 National Leaders of Color Fellowship, a program for art leaders across the country, with one representative from each state.<\/p>\n

Learn more UConn Health\u2019s art curator, Andre Rochester.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An artist himself, Andre Rochester likens UConn Health\u2019s collection to \u2018a mini museum\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":195542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1711,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2010],"class_list":["post-195207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-28 05:26:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195207"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195551,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195207\/revisions\/195551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/195542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195207"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=195207"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=195207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}