This year’s Master of Fine Arts Exhibition is here! The exhibition will be in the William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut from April 9th – May 8th.
There is an opening reception on Wednesday April 20th from 5pm-7pm.
The exhibition features Amanda Bulger, Don Burton, Kacie Davis Kamar Thomas, and Neil Orians.
Meet our grads here!
UConn MFA Alum, Matthew Jensen, has just received a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work in multiple disciplines, which include photography and sculpture. Here is what the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation had to say about his work:
Artist Matthew Jensen’s multi-disciplinary practice combines walking, collecting and rigorous site-specific explorations of landscapes. His projects strive to connect people to places by expanding the traditions of landscape photography to include a range of mediums and actions. Each body of work develops from time spent in publicly accessible landscapes or by examining the way different technologies transform this experience.
Jensen received his MFA from UConn in 2008. Since then he has become a MacDowell Fellow, participated in residencies at the Queens Museum, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Wave Hill, and Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. He has had exhibitions in The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and has been featured in The New Yorker.
Click here for more information on his Guggenheim Fellowship. To see more of his work, visit his website at jensen-projects.com
2015 Graduate of the School of Fine Arts, with a concentration in Illustration, Nicole Horsman has been featured in the 40th Anniversary Atlanta Film Festival. She screened her stop-motion animation “Klaus” on April 6th. “Klaus” began as her Senior Project work, completed for the April 2015 BFA Exhibition. “Klaus” was featured in a showcase entitled “Touch of the Puppet Head” which featured live puppetry performances alongside several films.
To see “Klaus” and more of her work go to nicolehorsman.com
Congratulations Nicole!
Professor Laurie Sloan, printmaker and founder of our own Counterproof Press, has a great show of images fusing digital technology and traditional screenprinting for the month of April (in Hartford, at EBK Gallery). Plus she’s getting some serious ink (pun intended) in “Two Coats of Paint,” Sharon Butler’s well-respected blog about fine arts. Check out more Professor Sloan’s work here.
Sharon Butler from EBK Gallery writes about Sloan’s work:
Sloan says her process, which involves fusing digital technology and traditional screen printing techniques, is like that of a naïve (or irresponsible) scientist who tests hypotheses, executes experiments, and injects random occurrence into established order. A fragment may become a tail, a claw, or an ear depending on the context. At first glance, the black and white images, loosely conjuring woodblock prints from medieval manuscripts, seem abstract and graphic, but over time, they gain resonance as steady, accusing eyes seem to emerge from the dark masses. Sloan works the images until, as she says, they have the odd quality of agency but also feel like victims. Sloan’s monsters, like Grendel in Beowulf are powerful and dangerous but at the same time targeted and vulnerable.
“Laurie Sloan,” curated by Sharon Butler. EBK Gallery, Hartford, CT. April 1- April 30, 2016. Opening reception Saturday, April 2, 6-9pm.
Our very own Brendan Smalec was one of ten UConn students and alumni to receive a fellowship from the National Science Foundation. UConn Today writes this about the award,
Regarded as one of the premier awards in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines, the NSF awarded 2,000 fellowships this year to support students in the early stages of their research-based master’s or doctoral careers. The fellows will receive an annual stipend of $34,000 for three years and $12,000 support for tuition and fees. The awardees also qualify for international research and professional development opportunities. The total value of the fellowship exceeds $138,000.
For this highly competitive award, applicants must submit research proposals, which are reviewed by expert scientists in their field. NSF fellowship recipients, as well as honorable mentions, represent the most promising young scientists in the nation, and the awards are seen as “investments that will help propel this country’s future innovations and economic growth,” according to a statement released by the agency.
Brendan’s research consists of examining cancer susceptibility and progression in a non-traditional mammalian model, specifically, the Peromyscus leucopus, or white-footed mouse. Working with an inbred line of P. leucopus found to be highly susceptible to developing an adenocarcinoma (cancer from a glandular origin) of the Harderian gland, the project seeks to determine what genetic signatures are present in the inbred mice line that predispose them to developing this cancer, and also what makes it so highly metastatic, since metastasis is usually the cause of death in most cancer-related fatalities.
Along with a BA and MA in Biology, Brendan is also receiving a second degree in Art History from the UConn School of Fine Arts.
See the full story in UConn Today
Artist Glen Baldridge will be visiting UConn on April 1st, 2016 to give a talk at the School of Fine Arts in Art Building Room 109 at 1pm
A native of Montana, Baldridge lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His work often satires the mainstreaming of countercultures and the glorification of escapist entertainment. Printmaking and photography dominate Baldridge’s work methods where process often acts as a foil within the narrative.
For more information on Baldridge and his work click here
Artist, Jong Oh prepares for the opening of his show in the Contemporary Art Galleries, Sotto Voce. Oh identifies his primary medium as space. His sparse constructions sculpt their environments by employing negative spaces, lighting effects and cast shadows to alter viewers’ perceptions of their surroundings
Oh states about his work:
“Responding to a site’s nuanced configuration, I build spatial structures by suspending Plexiglas and painted strings in the air. These elements connect or intersect with one another, depending on the viewers’ perspectives. Viewers walk in and around these paradoxical boundaries constituted by three-dimensionality and flatness, completion and destruction. The viewers’ experience becomes a meditation on perception’s whim.”
Sotto Voce opens on March 26th, 2016 with an Artist Talk at 5pm and the Reception will follow from 6pm-7pm
The show will be open from March 26th – May 6th
Junior BFA student concentrating in Graphic Design, Raeanne Nuzzo of New Haven, CT has received an IDEA Grant for a project that she is working on along side Professor Mary Banas, entitled Fear. The project is set to be shown in the Fall in the Visual Art Installation Space at the School of Fine Arts.
This is what Raeanne has to say about her project:
Fear: The Culture is an interactive poster design project, featuring the phrase “Something really dangerous is going on,” a quote from Donald Trump, paired with the hashtag “#FearTheCulture” printed over a variety of images from sensationalized media as a method to critique the American culture of fear. The posters will be hung publicly over the summer, and reactions will be documented and catalogued along with the original source materials, culminating in a complete documentation and exhibition of the work in VAIS Gallery in Fall 2016.
The MFA Students of UConn proudly invite you to the 2016 Spring Semester Open Studios Event! There will be food, music, art and a chance to learn more about each MFA student’s work.
Thursday March 10th from 7-9PM at the Visual Arts Research Center (VARC) located on UConn’s Depot Campus in the Lebanon and Colchester buildings.
The VARC is located on the UConn Depot Campus, just off Rt. 44.
*BY BUS: From the UConn main campus, take the Purple Line and get off at the Lebanon Cottage stop
*BY CAR: From 195, take Rt 44 West.
At the stoplight next to the former prison, make a left onto Walters Avenue. Stay right at the fork to merge onto Ahern Lane.
Just past the abandoned buildings, you should see Lebanon Cottage and a blue sign that says “Visual Arts Research Center.” Parking is FREE.
See the Facebook Event Page for more information
Join us for the MFA Art Auction in the Art Building Arena Gallery from 5pm-7pm on Thursday, March 31st
There will be a Silent Auction at 6pm and a Live Auction at 7pm with an Art Preview on March 29th
Take a look at some of the work that will be at the auction on MFA Auction Flickr
Ted Efremoff, assistant professor of art at Central Connecticut State University and a 2006 graduate of the UConn MFA Studio Art program, will discuss his artist work on March 4, 2016 at 12:00pm at the MFA Graduate Studios (VARC) on the Depot campus.
Efremoff born in Moscow, Russia, is a cross-disciplinary artist engaged with performance, video, installation and social practice. Spurred by his personal interest in social justice, he envisions collaborative activity as an instrument that builds critical relationships between people. His art explores the personal and cultural constraints ingrained within prevailing political, economic, and social power structures.
Efremoff has performed and exhibited nationally at Chashama performance spaces, Sideshow and PSII Galleries in New York City, The Museum of American Art in Philadelphia and the Benton and Mattatuck museums in Connecticut. Internationally his work has been seen at the Gongju National Museum in South Korea, The National Center of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Russia and The National Palace of Culture in Sofia, Bulgaria. His work is in the collections of the Sound Museum of Rome, The Los Angeles Center for Digital Arts and the Culture House of Bad Sobernheim, Germany.
2014 MFA Graduate, Micah Cash, has recently announced that he will be publishing a book on a project he worked on while at The University of Connecticut. His website states the series Dangerous Waters investigates the landscapes and contemporary social impact of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) hydroelectric program. These photographs explore the tenuous balance between landscapes designed for hydroelectric generation and public recreation. While these dams have become symbols of social and economic prosperity, they also remain visual reminders of loss, population removal, and eminent domain. The ecological and personal sacrifices are privately internalized and the social benefits publicly celebrated.
To see more of Dangerous Waters see Micah’s feature on The Bitter Southerner or got to his website micahcash.com
Our alumna, Justine Braisted, who graduated in 2013 with a BFA concentrating in Communication Design has been offered a position at Pentagram in NYC—one of the most prestigious studios in the country. This brings the number of Graphic Design graduates who have worked there over the last few years to three (Haley Taylor ’15 and Emily Makarainen ’15). But the good news does not stop there for Justine, she has also been accepted in to the MFA program in Graphic Design at the Royal College of Art in London for the Fall 2016 semester. She will be joining UConn BFA graduate Sara Jamshidi who also graduated in 2013.
Congratulations, Justine!
Monday-Friday 10am-4pm and Sunday 1pm-4pm
The Contemporary Art Galleries announces its upcoming alumni exhibition, Alumni Biennial
(Three) January 26th through March 11th. The exhibition will feature four graduates from the University of
Connecticut’s Master of Fine Arts program. Juried by Jay Lehman, co-owner of New York City’s Morgan Lehman Gallery. Alumni Biennial (Three) will feature recent artwork by Deborah Zlotsky (MFA 1989), Jenn Dierdorf (MFA 2008) Siobhan Landry (MFA 2011) and Jared Holt (MFA 2014). Connecting each of these artists is a strong sense of play, either through style and appropriated imagery as with Dierdorf’s new flower portraits, through response to medium and process as with Zlotsky’s paintings and wall drawings, through the interactivity of Holt’s Typewriter, or through the dreamlike engagement with narrative in Landry’s video, A Place to Put Her. What starts as play gives way to complexity, engaging with important ideas of gender, sexuality, life, death, and the artist’s response.
For more information on the exhibition click here
Recent graduate Antonio Campelli ’15 (SFA) has been named a winner of the prestigious Marshall Scholarship. He is one of just 32 selected from among 916 applicants this year.
As the fourth Marshall recipient in UConn history – and 10th finalist since the 2005-2006 academic year – Campelli joins an impressive lineup of students who have gained the attention of the Marshall selection committee. Of the 10, he is the first to have graduated from the School of Fine Arts: the others have come from a variety of majors in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering.
The Marshall Scholarship is Britain’s flagship government-funded program for American students who represent some of the finest and brightest college graduates in the United States. It is named after former Secretary of State George C. Marshall, and was established as a gesture of gratitude to the people of the United States for the assistance the U.S. provided after WWII under the Marshall Plan.
Congratulations Antonio!
See the UConn Today article in its’ entirety here
