The galleries at Sierra Nevada University focus primarily on progressive emerging artists whose work ranges from traditional media to site-specific installations. This rich programming brings work that is both exciting and challenging to the college and local community.
Both our rotating exhibitions and monthly arts programming are always free and open to the public. Sign up for our email list and follow us on Instagram to get the most up to date information about our exhibitions and events.
Current Exhibitions
Artist: High School and Community College Students
Reception Talk: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 | 5:30 PM (PST) | Online
Reception Registration: Eventbrite (required)
The annual Flat Rate show is a juried exhibition to showcase exceptional visual art by current high school and community college students of any media. This year we’ve gone extra FLAT with a fully online exhibition.
Artist: Rossitza Todorova
Reception & Artist Talk: March 10, 2021 | 5:30 PM (PST) | Online
Reception Registration: Eventbrite (required)
Rossitza Todorova is a visual artist exploring ideas of time and transformation. Through painting, drawing, printmaking, book forms, video and installations she investigates how time, space and memory fold into each other. Striving for visual movement and motion her compositions are layered with bright colors and structural lines creating abstracted landscapes inspired by the West and the built environment.
For Rossitza Todorova, it's all about the journey. Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, Rossitza Todorova immigrated to the United States as a child. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2005 and her Master of Fine Arts degree in Drawing from the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, School of Art at Arizona State University in 2013. Todorova is currently a full-time Studio Art Instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada.
artist website: rossitza.art
Artist: Aida Lizalde
Reception & Artist Talk: Wednesday, February 24 | 5:30pm PST | Online
Reception Registration: Eventbrite (required)
My work deals with how assimilation defines self and culture and my resistance and embrace of it. I focus on decolonization, mestizaje (the condition of being of European and Indigenous descent), and culture as a plural and cyclical entity. As an undocumented childhood arrival before DACA, the American Dream felt like Stockholm Syndrome. My identity was defined by my location, legal status, and the various signifiers assigned to an identity.
This exhibition presents works in relation to those signifiers and conditional identity. “Overwhelming Ground,” is a series of handmade paper collages I call quilts, made while in residency in Mexico City in the Fall of 2020. In it I represent Mexican-American international relations, politics, violence, and economics, as well as the cyclical construction and destruction of the city as a metaphor for culture. “ID” is a series of cyanotype works that contain photos of the immigration documents submitted by applicants. It exposes a visual history of the application processes that immigrants are subjected to by Homeland Security. This includes Visa, DACA, green card, and naturalization applications, showing changes through time, identity definitions, and self of the people that go through them.
artist website: aidalizalde.com
Upcoming Exhibitions

Midway Art Portfolio Review 2021
Reference GalleryMarch 29 – April 9
Artist: names
Curator: name
Reception: Wednesday, March 31, 2021 | Reference Gallery [Prim 2nd floor]
Artist Presentations: 3pm
. . . More
Our Galleries:
Garage Door Gallery
Location: Holman Arts & Media Center (located across the street from main campus at 1008 Tahoe Blvd), 1st floor
Rotating exhibitions throughout the school year, featuring visiting artists in a variety of disciplines and artistic styles.
Tahoe Gallery
Location: Prim Library, 3rd floor
More rotating exhibitions throughout the school year, featuring visiting artists in a variety of disciplines and artistic styles.
Reference Gallery
Location: Prim Library, 3rd floor hallway
Periodic exhibitions, often featuring work by current SNU students.
Ron and Maureen Ashley Community Gallery
Location: Holman Arts & Media Center, 2nd floor
Community-focused pop-ups, and short term exhibitions by SNU students.
Streamline Mobile Gallery
Location: Somewhere…
A vintage Streamline trailer converted into an art space. Students and faculty have taken the gallery to a variety of locations including CCACA (California Conference for the Advancement of Ceramic Art), Burning Man, Sagehen Creek Field Station, and other locations throughout the western landscape.
Recent Exhibitions
a state agency which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a state agency, and from the state of Nevada.

