Division of Art Faculty Shine in Exhibitions from Taiwan to Texas
Art professors Brian Molanphy and Daniel Rios Rodriguez display their work in major exhibitions, from right here in Texas to the mountains of Taiwan.
Two professors in Meadows’ Division of Art, Brian Molanphy and Daniel Rios Rodriguez, are currently showcasing major exhibitions that speak to the depth of their practice and the breadth of their influence as artists and educators. From Taiwan to San Antonio, Texas, their work reflects the school’s mission of recruiting and retaining artist-scholars who nurture commitment to the study of art across a wide spectrum and provide a guiding force in society.
Both Molanphy and Rodriguez’s work exemplifies the reach and practice that continue to define the art program at Meadows. Their exhibitions, along with other notable recent exhibitions from art professors like Philip Van Keuren, illustrate how Meadows faculty continually expand the boundaries of artmaking and show students that art is not confined to the studio or the classroom, it evolves beyond. Read on to learn about our faculty’s newest exhibitions.
Brian Molanphy: Transition Modality 过渡情态
In Taipei, Taiwan, ceramics artist and Professor of Art Brian Molanphy presents Transition Modality 过渡情态, an exhibit about the flow from containers, into containers, and the flow of the containers themselves. The exhibition brings together three series: drawings, teapots, and tiles, created during his residencies at Cloud Forest Ceramics, Qing Yao 清窑, and the National Taipei University of Education (北教大).
For Molanphy, the idea of “flow” is central to his work. There is the flow of soda glaze across the tiles from Cloud Forest studio, the flow of ash across the fingerprint-dappled teapots from Qing Yao, and the flow of ink across the paper in the drawings from NTUE (Bei Jiao Da). These all show the flow of the figure across the ground in the artworks, where the edges distinguishing figure from ground are fluid. His installations are as much about atmosphere as they are about object, often mirroring the shifting Taiwanese environment.
“On an intimate scale, flowers, tea, and pots represent the flow of the grand scale of Taiwanese landscape from mountains to valleys to shoreline to the ocean, then back again through clouds,” explains Molanphy. “Across these are the architectural interventions of culture, which ravage nature and are themselves ravaged by nature, eventually.”
His residency in Taipei continues his long-term exploration of how ceramics integrates into architecture and the environment, connecting centuries-old traditions with contemporary practice. For Meadows students, Molanphy’s work models how artists can bridge cultures through craft, research and lived experience.
Transition Modality 过渡情态 will run from Saturday, October 18 through Sunday, November 30 at Cloud Forest Collective in Taipei, Taiwan.
Daniel Rios Rodriguez: Open This Wall
Back in Texas, Assistant Professor of Painting Daniel Rios Rodriguez is being celebrated with a landmark solo exhibition at Ruby City in San Antonio. Open This Wall, which is on view for almost a full year from October 25, 2025, through October 4, 2026, is a personal and expansive look at 12 years of the artist’s career. Though Rodriguez is known primarily as a painter, the show brings together work from a variety of mediums, including paintings, drawings, prints and even sculptures.
“I consider [this exhibition] to be a small-scale mid-career survey that takes into consideration the influence San Antonio and Texas as a whole has had on my work,” says Rodriguez. “For my work to be shared with the San Antonio community for an entire year is an incredible privilege.”
The exhibition’s title, drawn from one of his own paintings inspired by a dream, evokes transformation and openness, which are both concepts central to Rodriguez’s creative process. He blends abstraction and representation with found objects, producing symbolic, emotive images that balance specificity with openness to interpretation.
Weaving together references to his Mexican-American identity, the Texas landscape, and moments of daily life along the San Antonio River, Rodriguez manages to capture personal experiences alongside surreal dreamscapes in his body of work.
“Daniel’s work offers a poetic exploration of everyday life that is both specific and expansive,” said Elyse A. Gonzales, Director of Ruby City. “Open This Wall not only showcases the artist’s extraordinary output over more than a decade but also honors the importance of San Antonio in shaping his unique vision.”
Installed within Ruby City’s 2,200-square-foot Studio in Chris Park, Open This Wall includes Rodriguez’s first site-specific wall drawing, enveloping visitors in an immersive visual journey. It’s both a celebration of Rodriguez’s artistic evolution and a farewell to the city that has deeply shaped his artistic journey. As part of the Meadows art faculty, he brings that same reflective energy and commitment to experimentation into his teaching.
For more information on Rodriguez’s landmark exhibition at Ruby City,
