Biography

Rebecca Hutchinson received her MFA from the University of Georgia (Athens) and her BA from Berea College. An award-winning sculptor, she was one of 12 recipients of the 2015 “Women to Watch” award from the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. A dedicated educator of over 20 years, she currently serves as full professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth teaching undergraduate and graduate ceramics. 

Hutchinson’s sculptural work is informed by observations of the natural world, drawing inspiration from what she sees as its resilience and resourcefulness. Ranging in scale from site-installation museum projects to gallery sculpture, the work is a profusion of color harmonies, floral textures and absorbing detail. Found embedded in her work are locally sourced materials—native and natural as well as industrial and domestic cast-offs. The work is attentive to the emerging concerns of the Anthropocene: sustainability as an ethos, hybridity as a strategy, and growth as a set of negotiations. Her current work explores the theme of navigating boundaries both conceptually and aesthetically. 

Hutchinson’s work has appeared in prominent national and international venues such as the Taiwan Ceramics Biennale, the Everson Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design, the National Museum for Women in the Arts, SOFA (now Intersect Chicago, represented by Duane Reed Gallery), the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, the Vendrell Biennale (Spain), the Danforth Museum of Art, the Lowe Museum of Art, the Canton Museum of Art, and the Fuller Craft Museum, among many others.

Hutchinson’s work has been published in over 80 publications nationally and internationally—notably, Sculpture, Surface Design, Orion, Huffington Post, American Craft, Ceramics Monthly, La Ceramica, Ceramics Ireland, Ceramics Art and Perception, New Ceramics, Korean Ceramic Art Monthly, Women in the Arts, and Revista Ceramica Contemporanea.

She has been awarded numerous grants, fellowships, and awards—notably from the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, as Artist of the Year by the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston and as Distinguished Artist by the James Renwick Alliance in Washington DC. For teaching and research, Hutchinson is highly-awarded by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She has been nominated three years in a row for the Outstanding Educators Award of the International Sculpture Center (Sculpture Magazine).

Prominent collections which hold Hutchinson’s work include: the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Maldives Waldorf Astoria, the Boston Children’s Hospital, the Yingge Museum (Taiwan), the Perlman Museum, the Georgia Museum of Art, and the Canton Museum of Art.