Caroline Rust Ward

Caroline Rust Ward is Assistant to the Dean and Administrative Coordinator for the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Holding 19 non-consecutive years of service to Winthrop University, prior to this position she was in the Office of University Events; President’s Office, where she served as Campus Events Manager supporting internal event operations and planning for presidential, executive, and the Board of Trustees. With an emphasis on arts, architecture, and engineering, Caroline has 25+ years’ experience in administration, project management, planning, development, data management, gallery work, and marketing in academia and commerce.

Other roles she’s held at Winthrop include Donor Relations Coordinator, Director of Community Arts, Permanent Collection Manager, and Assistant to the Galleries. Caroline has been an adjunct professor of art and design at Winthrop and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Committed to art and community, Caroline passionately advocates for public art in the region. She has served on the ArtPop Street Gallery national board of directors and currently is the art selection committee chair and project manager of the Women’s Art Initiative board in Rock Hill, S.C.

She has been a member of the National Association of Women Artists of New York, N.Y. since 2010. Caroline, a Charlotte, N.C. native, earned an M.F.A. in painting from Winthrop in 1997 and a B.F.A. in painting from East Carolina University in 1993. She is a visual artist who creates her work under the name Caroline Rust. Described as a painter’s painter, Caroline creates intriguing surface assemblages with deconstructed garments she enriches with expressionistic paint application. In a synthesis of emotion and intellect, her works of art regard the dressing table and wardrobe in metaphor to reflect qualities of the feminine, consider aspects of womanhood, explore identity, and commemorate the human condition. Caroline’s award-winning works of art are procured by private and corporate collectors and are represented by Elder Gallery of Contemporary Art in Charlotte.

In 2020, she had work published in a Belgian educational book entitled Curieus 6. Caroline has been an artist in residence at the McColl Center for Visual Arts where she also has taught art and design workshops to the public. With work featured annually in juried group and one-person exhibitions, in 2022 she exhibited at UpStairs ArtSpace in Tryon, N.C. Prior to that, her work was in a 3-woman show called “Reflecting Her Story” at Radford University Art Museum – VA and the Center for the Arts – Rock Hill. She co-curated the exhibit and received a grant from the S.C. Arts Commission and Arts Council of York County. Caroline’s work was selected for display in 2017 and again in 2021 for Charlotte’s public art program, ArtPop Street Gallery.

Selected exhibit locations include: Grand Central Library – New York, N.Y., Point Park University – Pittsburgh, P.A., The SC State Biennial – Columbia, S.C., UNC-Charlotte – Charlotte, N.C., East Carolina University – Greenville, N.C., Goggle Works – Reading, P.A., Spirit Square – Charlotte, N.C., Central Piedmont Community College – Charlotte, N.C, and Artemisia Gallery – Chicago, I.L.