Info – Tina M. Dillman

CONNECT

EMAIL: tinadillmanprojects @ gmail.com

BIO & CV

Tina is currently residing at the Gear Factory in Syracuse, New York, where she is starting up a new gallery project called, Gallery @ The Gear that will feature local and regional artists with monthly rotating exhibits and public programming. She is also, presently available on a sliding scale for remote and local consulting services working with artists, entrepreneurs, small businesses, non-profits, corporations, and/or government agencies. Any inquiries can be sent to her email, and for more information about the services available, please visit her page, AGENCY.

During the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, Tina was based in Pittsburgh, PA, where she founded The Bloomfield Garden Club. This roaming outdoor arts salon featured local and regional artists that identify as “vulnerable” (queer, not-white, female, a mother, and/or other) that work in dance, music, literature, comedy, media, visual and/or performance art. She ran this programming for 2 years with the support from the Heinz Endowments and the Pittsburgh Foundation.

Tina arrived to Pittsburgh in late 2018, through a fully funded arts writing residency that was sponsored by Associated Artists of Pittsburgh and Bunker Projects. Later in the following year, she was appointed the Director of Exhibitions and Programming at the Pittsburgh Center of Arts & Media (PCA&M), which was unfortunately, a short lived tenure, as she was part of a massive layoff (40 employees in total), in an attempt to keep the organization afloat, whole departments were eliminated from the budget. During her time at PCA&M, she organized and curated one large group exhibition that focused on the destruction of the environment through human intervention called, What Have We Done. Also, while in Pittsburgh, she had one independent curation project launch, a two-person exhibit called, Rolling Coal, that focused on masculine toxic energies through the lens of two local male artists. This exhibit was installed in a donated storefront space that was located in a new development project on Pittsburgh’s South Side.

In the fall of 2014, Tina relocated to Buffalo, New York, where she launched a socially engaged artist residency program out of her home, called Project Grant. She collaborated with visiting artists and community partners to create free and accessible programming in disenfranchised neighborhoods around the city. In December 2016, Dillman moved into 500 Seneca as the first Artist/Curator In-Residence. Here she launched The Cass Project, an arts and cultural initiative whose mission was to create culturally diverse artistic programming and events that engage, empower, and spark dialogue and action in creating community and rehabilitating neighborhoods. During the four years Dillman lived in Buffalo, she became an active member of the arts advocacy group the Greater Buffalo Cultural Alliance, was an arts writer for Buffalo Rising and The Public, and was also a faculty member of the Arts Management Department at the University of Buffalo.

From 2009-11, Tina co-founded, directed, and curated an alternative arts space out of her home called, WE Artspace (Oakland CA). During those years, the space worked with over 100 visual artists, chefs, dancers, filmmakers, musicians, performers, poets and writers. Also at this time, she was directing the Oakland Art Murmur, the monthly citywide art walk, as their first Executive Director. In addition to working in the community, Tina also was an active artist, with a studio at the Hive Studios in West Oakland, and exhibited through the Bay Area.

She has dedicated her life to the arts, through Board involvement at the San Francisco Art Institute, Intersection for the Arts (SF) and Rock Paper Scissors (Oakland). She has held paid positions at AS220 (Providence), ArtSpan (SF), Oakland Art Murmur, Rock Paper Scissors (Oakland), Sculpture Space (Utica, NY), Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Arts Center (Buffalo), and at Pittsburgh Center for Arts & Media (PA). She has also volunteered with various art non-profits like, Southern Exposure (SF), The Lab (SF), New Langton Arts (SF), Contemporary Craft (Pittsburgh), and the Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh).

Tina has traveled for residencies at AS220 (RI), Bunker Projects (Pittsburgh), Guapamacataro Center for Art & Ecology (Mexico), Lichtenberg Studios (Germany), Mauser EcoHouse (Costa Rica), and at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop (Scotland). She has been a visiting artist/curator at Carnegie Mellon University (PA), University of Pittsburgh (PA), Syracuse University (NY), Alfred University (NY), Visual Studies Workshop (NY), and École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (France). She has performed at the Berkeley Art Museum (CA), Echo Art Fair (Buffalo), Infringement Festival (Buffalo), and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (CA), while her object based work has been exhibited in Berlin, Los Angeles, Providence (RI), North Adams & Boston (MA), the Bay Area, throughout Western & Central NY, and at Small Mall in Pittsburgh, PA. She has also curated exhibitions throughout the Bay Area, Western New York, and in Pittsburgh, PA.

Tina received a Masters of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2014, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa in 2003.