January 7 – January 30, 2016
Lee Asahina – Andrew Douglas Campbell – Chelsea Couch – Mandy Hampton – Ron Linn – Joe Moore – Mary Margaret Morgan – Meril Wallace – Esther Weng
The 2016 UO Art MFA 2nd Year Exhibition presents the work of nine MFA students in their 2nd year of Candidacy. The Department of Art MFA is an interdisciplinary program in which students are encouraged to work across disciplines, with focus in areas of sculpture, photography, painting, printmaking, digital arts, ceramics, fibers, and jewelry & metalsmithing. The curriculum combines disciplinary depth and interdisciplinary thinking, and students work closely with faculty members from every media area through graduate reviews, independent studies, and interdisciplinary courses.
“An idea danced is an idea deteriorating in the process of being revealed, changed, getting caught up in the world, mucked-up and mitigated: that is, it’s improved.”*
If there is a common thread running through the work of these artists, it is that each refuses expected responses to subject-object relationships, and each artist mediates these relationships vis-à-vis surprising and experimental processes and use of materials, often conveying the aspiration of one medium through the voice of another, sometimes returning again and again to the same idea with widely varying responses. Collage, video, ceramics, drawing, sculptural bricolage, puppetry and painting are all presented under an umbrella of exploration whose imperative seems to be a continual upending of viewer expectation. There is a momentum in each artist’s practice, represented in this exhibition by works that index highly discursive and energetic artistic activity, hinting at both the temporal nature of an artist’s labor, as well as the enduring visual and conceptual momentum that occurs as the result.
The MFA program is a three-year period of rigorous studio investigation, critical discourse, and conceptual development. Emphasis is placed on developing a course of study tailored to the needs of the individual student, while encouraging exploration and risk-taking. The program supports a thorough engagement with the processes and principles that are fundamental to each student’s discipline, as well as an informed awareness of issues and practices within the larger art community. Developing fluency in critical discourse, analysis, and writing are important parts of the MFA program, which culminates in a yearlong terminal project and group Thesis exhibition.
