MASSACHUSETTS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN
THE GRADUATE PROGRAMS
2D LOW-RESIDENCY MFA at the FINE ARTS WORK CENTER in Provincetown MFATHESIS
MASSACHUSETTS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN President, Kay Sloan The Graduate Programs Dean of The Graduate Programs, George Creamer Assistant Dean of The Graduate Programs, Jenny Gibbs
PROVINCETOWN ART ASSOCIATION AND MUSEUM (PAAM) HAWTHORNE GALLERY Monday – Thursday 11 a.m. – 8 p.m. Friday 11 a.m. – 10 p.m. (free after 5 p.m.) Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. 460 Commercial Street Provincetown, MA 02657 508.487.1750 paam.org
HUDSON D. WALKER GALLERY THE FINE ARTS WORK CENTER Monday – Friday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Saturday – Sunday 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. 24 Pearl Street Provincetown, MA 02657 508.487.9960 fawc.org/mfa
2011 MFAWC Graduate Thesis Exhibition September 16, 2011 – October 2, 2011 Reception: Hudson D. Walker Gallery, Fine Arts Work Center, Friday, September 16, 2011 from 6 – 8 p.m. Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Friday, September 16, 2011 from 8 – 10 p.m.
Faculty
Mentors
Lasse Antonsen
Lasse Antonsen
GEORGE CREAMER
David Akiba
Nance Davies
Carla Aurich
Rebecca Morgan Frank
Gideon Bok
Joel Janowitz
Paul Bowen
Karen Kurczynski
Angela Dufresne
Jim Peters
Daphne Fitzpatrick
Catherine Titus-Wilcox
Kate Gilmore
Vicky Tomayko
Charles Gick
Helen Miranda Wilson
Julie Graham
BErt Yarborough
Michelle Handelman Vera Iliatova
Visiting Artists
Clint Jukkala
Gregory Amenoff
Reagan Louie
Paul Bowen
Nancy McCarthy
Susanna Coffey
Tom McGrath
Polly Apfelbaum
Elizabeth Mix
Michelle Handelman
Carolyn Muskat
Vera Iliatova
Dean Nimmer
Jon Imber
Rose Olson
Cindy Kleine
Geraldine O’Neill
Sarah McEneaney
Matthew Rich
Evelyn Rydz
Marian Roth
Craig Taylor
Cynthia Beth Rubin
Gwen Stahle
Evelyn Rydz
Helen Miranda Wilson
Paul Sacaridiz Jennifer Schmidt
Staff Barbara Baker Felicia van Bork Zehra Kahn Margaret Murphy Ted Ollier Nancy Winship Milliken
Laurel Sparks Craig Taylor Vicky Tomayko Penelope Umbrico Andrew Winship Timothy Woodman Bert Yarborough
CONTENTS FOREWORD 3 LAURA BOVINET
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ANITA CLEARFIELD
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Christine Lebeck
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JOANNE DESMOND
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DANA DUNHAM
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PAM HART
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SUSAN HODGIN
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JANE LINCOLN
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MARY JO McGONAGLE
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JESSICA O’HEARN
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TIM WINN
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2D LOW-RESIDENCY MFA IN PROVINCETOWN
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MASSACHUSETTS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN
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FOREWORD SUSANNA COFFEY
This beautiful exhibition and its catalog bring together the work of eleven accomplished artists who are now graduating from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s low‑residency MFA Program at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Underlying this exhibition are alchemical transformations which came about when these artists created a community, not just a class. Rimbaud said, “I is not me,” and so implied that authorship is not a simple matter. Perhaps only two hands make one creation, but how many eyes, voices and influences are also involved? During the two years of this program, these eleven artists left their comfort zones to develop their art. Twice yearly, they departed from families, jobs, and homes for the Fine Arts Work Center’s studios. They pushed each other, offering words of inspiration, criticism, support and challenge. Vibrant and authentic visions arose from this community of former strangers. It has been my privilege to witness this cohort become centered in such vital, meaningful work. Now we may all take pleasure in their drawings, paintings, installations, sculptures and videos. Behind every piece lies the intense dedication of these eleven to their own work, to each other and to art in the larger sense. If you look carefully at each and all of these images, you may see it: the traces of what happened when an “I” segued into a “we.”
SUSANNA COFFEY is the F.H. Sellers Professor, Painting and Drawing, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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LAURA BOVINET MFA LOW–RESIDENCY 2D ljbovinet@massart.edu
I enjoy dissecting my relations with others, striving to find what it is within our connection that held us together for that particular moment. My recent work has consistently dealt with my views on relationships as well as my coming to terms with adulthood. I use my medium to produce beautifully-crafted figures from my past, people who have helped shape the woman I am today.
Laura Bovinet Untitled, oil on canvas, 72” x 72”, 2011
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Laura Bovinet Untitled, oil on canvas, 48” x 43” each, 2011 Laura Bovinet The Space Between You and Me, oil on panel, 24” x 24”, 2010 7
ANITA CLEARFIELD MFA LOW–RESIDENCY 2D anita@leightonimages.com www.anitaclearfield.com
Come back, dear Viewer. I’m watching you, friend, from inside my art. See the body? I make art so I can figure out what I’m made of: slouch of shoulder. rising color. fractured light. Go ahead, laugh; there’s irony in my taking bodies apart --call it video, paint, or installation --- when your reaction is what pulls the pieces together again. Like Frankensteins, my creations wait for the lightening of your gaze, resurrected by the Unknown Viewer.
Anita Clearfield Dis Robe, video and mixed-media installation, dimensions variable, 2011
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Anita Clearfield Urban Dog Loves Ice Cream, oil on canvas, 36” x 24”, 2011 Anita Clearfield stills from Tree Arts: Peach Repair, video, 2011 9
Christine Lebeck MFA LOW–RESIDENCY 2D mail@christinelebeck.com www.christinelebeck.com
After moving into a small apartment from a large house, I started photographing the nuances of light that were present in the small space that I now inhabited. Feeling confined within this small space forced me to concentrate on the ever‑changing shift of the light that enveloped the walls and my possessions. The time of day, the month of the year and the changing weather patterns dramatically altered the light. In previous work I have recorded the passing of time while making visual memories of places I have inhabited. These new images show the subtle beauty found in the area in which light and shadow blend; otherwise known as the penumbra, the indistinct outer-region of a shadow. This is the focus of my work.
Christine Lebeck Bathroom #6, ink-jet print, 17” x 22”, 2011
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Christine Lebeck Living Room #14, ink-jet print, 17” x 22”, 2011 Christine Lebeck Living Room #47, ink-jet print, 47” x 22”, 2011 11
JOANNE DESMOND MFA LOW–RESIDENCY 2D joanne.desmond@gmail.com
My work straddles the thresholds of identity, experience, and memory. It is an exploration of the relationship between the visible and invisible, the gaze, the subject, and the other. The work is an evolution – saving the strongest characteristics of 2-D works on paper and transforming them into 3-D sculptural formation, as I attempt to articulate visually that which is incapable of being expressed or described in words, or that which is not to be spoken because of its sacredness to the internal or the subconscious.
Joanne Desmond Reversal of Fortune, found object, tarlatan, tissue paper and wire, 17” x 21” x 8”, 2011
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LEFT: Joanne Desmond Joanne’s Secret, copper wire, 33” x 13” x 2”, 2011 RIGHT: Joanne Desmond After Keifer - My Lillith, collage on brown paper bags and mesh, 67” x 17” x 7”, 2011 13
DANA DUNHAM MFA LOW–RESIDENCY 2D dana@danadunhamphotography.com www.danadunhamphotography.com
Sleepers are based on the dreamlike experience between life and death, between consciousness and the subconscious and between the self and the thought self that we wish to honor. These images have been photographed using 4x5 black and white traditional film and printed using liquid emulsion on watercolor paper. The emulsion is brushed on in the darkroom under red light with the photographic chemistry applied by the photographer allowing the exquisite experience of the photographer’s own expression and imagination. They are what you see in them and in hopes, a captured world that frees the mind from this temporal place.
Dana Dunham My Mother, liquid emulsion on water color paper 60” x 48”, 2011
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Dana Dunham My Parents, liquid emulsion on watercolor paper, 60” x 48”, 2010 Dana Dunham Andrew Sullivan, liquid emulsion on watercolor paper, 60” x 48”, 2010 15
PAM HART MFA LOW–RESIDENCY 2D pamelaahart@gmail.com www.pamelaahart.com
My work examines the sometimes awkward and self-aware consciousness of teenage girls, as well as their struggle for self-possession and individuality. I have been taking photographs of my daughters and their friends getting ready for social events like parties and school dances. My paintings investigate their strong reliance on each other, their push for independence and their unpredictable periods of isolation and boredom. I have located these girls in stage-like settings as a way of framing the transitory experience of their changing psyches and bodies, and the emergence of deeply felt relationships.
Pam Hart Attic, oil and charcoal on paper, 10.5” x 15”, 2011
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Pam Hart Before the Dance, oil on paper, 17” x 21.5”, 2011 Pam Hart Slippage, oil and charcoal on paper, 22” x 31”, 2011 17
SUSAN HODGIN MFA LOW–RESIDENCY 2D shodgin@mac.com www.susanhodgin.com
It is in new places that I discover new territories in my painting, and it is the memory of place that I bring into the studio to create my paintings. I do not work directly from drawings or photographs. Instead, I rely upon eroded memories abstracted by time as source material for my paintings. My paintings are not landscapes, but are maps of my experience in a landscape. I build up the surface of my canvases like time builds up the surface of the Earth. I create forms, I create elevations, and I create texture. I create scars. These lines respond to the surface beneath them. The painting is in dialogue with the past/previous layers. A prehistoric red will show through to the surface, charcoal dust will tint a white field, and a smooth, matte area will reveal the texture of the surface like a scar on the canvas. My paintings are mapping, charting, and recording my reactions to the landscape, past, present, and future.
Susan Hodgin Mountain, oil on canvas, 72” x 48”, 2011
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Susan Hodgin La Ceiba, oil on canvas, 51” x 48”, 2011 Susan Hodgin Mt. Sinai, oil on canvas, 44” x 48”, 2011 19
JANE LINCOLN MFA LOW–RESIDENCY 2D lincoln@janelincoln.com www.janelincoln.com
Color captures a moment. No color in nature is the same; no moment repeats. I am drawn to shorelines, marshes, and dunes where an expanse of sky clearly meets the earth. At these spacious locations nature’s hues appear timeless.
Jane Lincoln Pink Grasses, , latex and acrylic on board, 66” x 16”x 0.185” , 2011
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Jane Lincoln Province Lands, acrylic on paper, 12.5” x 3” each, 2011 Jane Lincoln Province Lands, acrylic on paper, 12.5” x 3” each , 2011 21
MARY JO McGONAGLE MFA LOW–RESIDENCY 2D maryjomcgonagle@optonline.net www.maryjomcgonagle.com
My art practice is a multi-disciplinary exploration of the many issues happening in the home. An investigation of images and narratives of sublimated family dynamics and the idea of the suburban home as an environment of contradictions. My decorative paintings and deceptive wallpapers conceal contemporary phrasing, which deal with unspoken, not-so-nice thoughts that we all share. Using colorful language, optical punch and vibrating text, the statements are camouflaged or imbedded in the wallpaper patterning so there is an element of discovery, revealing our innermost thoughts and feelings. In addition, I combine video and sound to create installations, which reflect my fascination with how our relationships take place in our everyday lives, hovering between humor and desperation, and time-based media in conjunction with painting creates an overall environment.
Mary Jo McGonagle Get Out, installation 12’ x 8’ x 8’
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Mary Jo McGonagle Why Can’t Anything Be Easy?, acrylic on canvas, 36” x 36”, 2011 Mary Jo McGonagle You Are Everything To Me, acrylic on canvas, 36” x 36”, 2011 23
JESSICA O’HEARN MFA LOW–RESIDENCY 2D jessicaohearn@hotmail.com www.jessicaohearn.com
My use of materials stems from an interest in the relationship of landscape to architecture. My attraction to tactility and subtle color leads me to compulsively collect natural objects and urban materials. I approach installation in a similar way, as an act of discovery. The forms stem from observation and imagination and transform every space within which they exist. Like the spaces we choose to create and inhabit, these works are temporary and infinite, serving as support and a reminder of how fleeting our structures can be.
LEFT: Jessica O’Hearn Untitled, vellum, 8” x 8” x 4”, 2011 RIGHT: Jessica O’Hearn Untitled, paper, dimensions variable, 2010 24
Jessica O’Hearn Untitled, carpet, dimensions variable, 2011
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TIM WINN MFA LOW–RESIDENCY 2D timwinn@folkdevils.com www.folkdevils.com
A drawing-based multi-media artist, I seek to blur the lines between materials and medium. As my work occupies the space between 2-D and 3-D, I explore the boundaries and expand the possibilities of drawing as a primary art form.
LEFT: Tim Winn Witch, photomechanical reproduction and ink and glow-in-the-dark paint on paper, 50” x 60” x 5”, 2011 RIGHT: Tim Winn Muskets, photomechanical reproduction and ink on paper, 45” x 55” x 10”, 2011 26
Tim Winn Cow Stunt, photomechanical reproduction and ink on paper, 110” x 65”, 2011
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2D LOW-RESIDENCY MFA IN PROVINCETOWN Provincetown has inspired artists for centuries; the Fine Arts Work Center has provided a sanctuary for artists since 1968. In 2005 MassArt launched a low-residency 2D/MFA Program at the Fine Arts Work Center for artists who want to pursue an MFA without suspending their personal and professional commitments. MassArt’s 2D/MFA in Provincetown is a unique opportunity for self-directed artists to develop work in an environment of natural beauty through a graduate program that combines the intensity of an on-site community and peer-based learning with the freedom and flexibility of distance education. The intensity of the residency sessions and off-site periods in this sixty credit, two-year program requires a high degree of discipline. Students spend four three-and-a-half week residencies in Provincetown during September and May, working intensively in their studios, which are open 24 hours a day. During residencies they also participate in Major Studio and Graduate Seminars, with emphasis on studio production and critical feedback from visiting artists, faculty and peers. Between residencies students return home to work under the guidance of mentors through monthly studio visits and critiques. Online art history and critical studies courses support an understanding of the context of contemporary work. At the conclusion of the program, candidates return to FAWC for a thesis exhibit and review. The Fine Arts Work Center was founded by a now illustrious group of artists and writers, including Fritz Bultman, Salvatore and Josephine Del Deo, Alan Dugan, Stanley Kunitz, Philip Malicoat, Robert Motherwell, Myron Stout, Jack Tworkov and Hudson D. Walker. Located on the same site where Hans Hoffman ran his famous art school, FAWC was envisioned as a community that would support emerging artists and writers with uninterrupted time to work. Participants in the MFA program have access to a wealth of FAWC resources, including large studios, a darkroom, a gallery and computer lab. Students have access to the Michael Mazur Print Studio, which honors his role as former head of this state-of-the-art printmaking facility. Housing is available in local guesthouses and inns within easy walking distance of the Work Center. In fact, the Fine Arts Work Center experience is not just about access to the highest-quality facilities, but offers the inspiration of living and working steeped in the atmosphere of one of America’s oldest art colonies.
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MASSACHUSETTS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston MA USA
With a legacy of leadership dating back to 1873, Massachusetts College of Art and Design was the first degreegranting college of art in the U.S. Today MassArt is at the forefront of art and design in the 21st century as the nation’s only independent public university offering top-ranked graduate programs in painting and printmaking, photography, sculpture, film and video, interrelated media (SIM), dynamic media/interactive communication design, art education and architecture. MassArt’s programs are rated among the best in the country. Businessweek ranks MassArt as one of the best design schools in the world, and MassArt’s MFA Program is US News & World Report’s top-rated MFA Program in Massachusetts. MassArt’s Boston campus offers more than 1,000,000 square feet of studios, galleries, workshops and classrooms. The campus is located across the street from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and around the corner from the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, providing students with free access to two world-class art collections, as well as that of the Institute of Contmporary Art/Boston. Admission to MassArt’s Graduate Programs is highly selective, ranking among the top three graduate programs in art and design in the country, as reported by the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. MassArt enrolls 1,790 undergraduate and 195 graduate students from more than 34 countries, reflecting the international reputation of the university and Boston’s place as one of the great learning centers in the world. For more information please visit massartgraduateprograms.org, email gradinfo@massart.edu, or call (617) 879-7166
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CREDITS: Editor and Creative Director: Jenny Gibbs, Assistant Dean of The Graduate Programs Photographer: Camilo Ramirez (MFA ‘01) Production and Design: Maria Anna Stangel (MFA ’12)
©Copyright 2011 Massachusetts College of Art and Design All rights reserved; no part of this book may be reproduced without the express written permission of the publisher.