Visiting Assistant Professor
Imaging Arts/Graphic Design
MFA, School of Visual Arts
BFA, George Mason University
Email: vgpolgar@olemiss.edu
Valerie Guinn Polgar is a new media artist and educator. She received her BFA in Digital Art from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA in 2007 and her MFA in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2010. As an interdisciplinary new media artist, Valerie uses video, animation, and physical computing to create digital and interactive works. Valerie is also the founder and director of misbits: a new media art space, located in Oxford Mississippi, that serves as a gallery space and as an educational space that promotes art created through the use of technology and collaboration.
Valerie’s work addresses issues of impermanence and fragility through the use of surrogate forms. She is inspired by the notion of mortality and by the human body itself and explores ideas of impressions and decay as a natural consequence of existence. Valerie feels that the nature of new media lends itself to the use of surrogate forms within a safe environment where she possesses the control to save and duplicate her work—essentially allowing her to create immortal models of mortality. Her work has been shown in New York City and in the D.C. metro area.