Jason Guynes is a professor of art and chairperson of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Alabama. He holds the MFA in Painting from Tulane University and has had academic appointments at universities in Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Alabama. He has been working in academia for thirty-one years and has served as a chairperson at three institutions for a total of twenty-seven years. While at the University of West Alabama he founded and served as director of the UWA Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition, an ongoing national exhibition of outdoor sculpture. At the University of South Alabama, he oversaw the design and construction of a state-of-the-art glass blowing facility and program, as well as the creation of a BFA program in animation and an MFA program in Creative Technologies and Practice. In his current position at the University of Alabama, he managed the design and construction of a new graduate studio building and is currently overseeing the renovation of studio classrooms in historic Woods Hall. As part of his commitment to internationalization efforts within the academic units he oversees, he has designed and directed study abroad programs in Spain and Italy since 2008 and has organized visiting scholars from Spain and China. He served as President of SECAC, the second largest arts organization of its kind in the US, from 2014 to 2017, and served in the governance of that organization for over ten years. Guynes exhibits his work in a variety of venues focusing on non-profit spaces, university galleries, and museums, and his work has been featured in Creative Quarterly’s virtual gallery, Negative Capability Journal, and Manifest Gallery’s International Painting Annual 8 and International Drawing Annual 15 (forthcoming). Group exhibition venues include The Bowery Gallery (NYC), Manifest Gallery (Cincinnati, OH), AIR Gallery (Manchester, England), University of North Carolina Asheville, Stephen F. Austin State University (TX), LaGrange Museum of Art (GA), Mobile Museum of Art (AL), University of Kentucky (Lexington), Notre Dame University of Maryland (Baltimore), Del Mar College (Corpus Christi, TX), Wiregrass Museum of Art (AL), Valdosta State University (GA), and the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum (Roanoke, VA), among others. In addition to exhibiting artwork, Guynes has completed both private and public mural commissions throughout the United States with major commissions in Mesa, AZ, Joplin, MO, Philadelphia, PA, Livingston, AL, and Mobile, AL. His most recent public mural project was the Moulton Bell Tower Mural for the University of South Alabama. Continuing a lifelong commitment to the improvement of society through the arts, Guynes also works in social practice. His latest project, funded by the Centers for Disease Control, was exhibited in 2023 at the David J. Sencer CDC Museum in association with the Smithsonian Institution. Jason lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and maintains a residence and studio in Bosa, Italy.