2016 UO Art MFA 2nd Year Exhibition

White Box at the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts in Portland is pleased to present 2016 UO Art MFA 2nd Year Exhibition. On display will be the work of nine master of fine arts graduate students in their second year of candidacy.

Lee Asahina
Andrew Douglas Campbell
Chelsea Couch
Mandy Hampton
Ron Linn
Joe Moore
Mary Morgan
Meril Wallace
Esther Weng

WHITE BOX
24 NW 1st Ave, Portland, OR 97209
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday | noon-6:00 p.m.
503-412-3689 
whitebox.uoregon.edu

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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.

*Martin, Timothy, “Janitor in a Drum: Excerpts from a Performance History”, Mike Kelley: Catholic Tastes, Whitney Museum of American Art, 59-64, 1993

This exhibition is made possible in part by the Ballinger Family Memorial Fund.