Exhibitions 2014: MFA 2014 Thesis Exhibition

April 6 - May 18, 2014

Guest Curator: Judith Tolnick Champa

Featured Artists: Aaron Badham, Alain Blunt, Bliss Clemmer, Evan DeMarzo, Kaitlyn L. Evans, Bryan Fitzpatrick Geary, Monica M. Guerra, Jessica Heikes, Jo Anna L. Hickman, Sam Kelly, Kat Knutsen, Mikelle Lindsey, Canguo Liu, Yasaman Louhghalam, Leslie Macklin, Maureen Patrick, Adrian Francis Poole, Roy St. Christopher Rossow, Calley Snow, Jennifer Wood

UMass Dartmouth College of Visual and Performing Arts proudly announces its upcoming, large-scale MFA Thesis Exhibition presented from April 5 to May 18 in the galleries and windows of the first floor of the Star Store Campus in historic Downtown New Bedford. This diverse artistic showcase represents the culmination of two to three years of intensive research and preparation. As Dean Adrian Tió and Assistant Dean Heather Bentz jointly remark, this exhibition celebrates “the singular achievement of obtaining the advanced professional degree in the visual arts.”

The 2014 exhibition includes the creative efforts of 20 UMass Dartmouth MFA degree candidates in the visual arts: Aaron Badham, Alain Blunt, Bliss Clemmer, Evan DeMarzo, Kaitlyn L. Evans, Bryan Fitzpatrick Geary, Monica M. Guerra, Jessica Heikes, Jo Anna L. Hickman, Sam Kelly, Kat Knutsen, Mikelle Lindsey, Canguo Liu, Yasaman Louhghalam, Leslie Macklin, Maureen Patrick, Adrian Francis Poole, Roy St. Christopher Rossow, Calley Snow, and Jennifer Wood.

An opening reception will be held on Saturday, April 5, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Work on display represents disciplines ranging from painting, sculpture, and furniture design to video art, installation, and application software design.

The guest curator of the exhibition, Judith Tolnick Champa, editor-in-chief of Art New England magazine as well as a practicing independent curator, states, “As the guest curator charged with organizing selections of students culminating MFA work into a single exhibition for the Star Store galleries, and for Bromfield Gallery in Boston thereafter, I am astonished at the students’ range. Inspiration from the immediate natural world is prominent in the art, yet also expressed are gender and identify politics, feelings of nostalgia, desire for human connection, vulnerability, personal struggle, and various means of meeting the world in defiance.”

Gallery exhibitions are open daily in New Bedford from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm and until 9:00 pm during AHA! Nights (every second Thursday each month – April 10 and May 8). All events are open to the public without charge.

Selections from this exhibition will be shown this summer at the Bromfield Gallery in Boston from June 4 to June 28, with an opening reception on Friday, June 6, 6:00 - 8:30 p.m. UMass Dartmouth alumni are invited to a preview reception at 5:00 pm.

Exhibition Catalog