CFA School of Visual Arts 2016 MFA Thesis Catalogue

2016 Master of Fine Arts Thesis Catalog

MFA BU

2016

MES SAGE FR O M T H E D I R E CTOR

On behalf of the Boston University School of Visual Arts, I would like to congratulate the 2016 MFA candidates in Graphic Design, Painting, and Sculpture on their MFA Thesis Exhibitions.

I am pleased to also introduce this Thesis Catalogue, produced as a companion to the MFA Exhibitions held at the 808 Gallery and the Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery from April 8 through April 24, 2016.

The work in the exhibitions, and on these pages, reflects not only the ingenuity and commitment of our students but also the dedication and generosity of our faculty. The reputation of our graduate programs is defined by exceptional teaching and excellence in art-making, and I believe the catalogue captures the rigor and intimacy of our MFA programs.

Life is a series of beginnings and endings. As our students approach the end of their graduate studies, they prepare for a new beginning as working artists and designers. They will enter their professional lives with profound skills: the patience to observe, the discipline to think critically and to work hard, and the visual acumen to articulate what is and what could be.

I want to personally thank all of the faculty, staff, and students who worked tirelessly on this exhibition and catalogue. A special thanks goes out to design faculty member Yael Ort-Dinoor,

who sets the bar high for what it means to be an outstanding teacher; Media Coordinator Evan Smith who managed every aspect of the project with his exceptional attention to detail; and most importantly first-year graduate student Alicia DeWitt, whose beautiful design you hold in your hands now.

Jeannette Guillemin Director ad interim, School of Visual Arts

Voices

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Kamal Ahmad

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Moneira Albanyan

20

Madeleine Bialke

24

Xiaoshuang Chen

28

Ye (Yve) Chen

32

Andy Crusham

36

Shane Davis

44

Adam Eddy

48

Ge Feng

52

Xinling Hu

56

Ran Jin

60

Elise Angela Jones

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68

Ethan Kolwaite

72

Sascha LaFave

76

Corey M. Larue

80

Eung-Sun Lee

84

Pan Lin

88

Leeanne Maxey

96

Drew Pate

100

Claire E. Roll

104

Erin Leigh Sanders

108

Marianne Sami Schoucair

112

Aliza Sternstein

116

Sia Xie

120

Yue (Joyee) Zhou

VOICES

For many, a graduate program in the fine arts can allow an artist’s career to develop in new, and sometimes unexpected, directions.

Three artists graduating from BU School of Visual Arts—Leeanne Maxey, Claire E. Roll, and Elise Jones—sat down with Sasha Goldman, a doctoral candidate in the History of Art & Architecture Department at BU to reflect on their time at the School of Visual Arts and how their work has grown through the support of fellow students and the faculty, developed in reaction to their surroundings, and changed in exciting and productive ways.

Sasha Goldman, Art History: A lot of what graduate school is about is self-motivation; it’s a self-selecting group that are here—people don’t just do this on a whim. So, for the most part, those of us who are in graduate school are the people who want to be involved and will do what we can to get to where we want to be. To get us started, how has as your graduate school experience—the two years of incubation away from the professional world—allowed you to develop in a way that you wouldn’t have, had you not had this experience? What have been the benefits of this kind of experience in that sense?

Leeanne Maxey, Painting: I definitely don’t think I could have developed so quickly had I not been at BU. It would have taken like five or ten years. Having visiting artists coming through all the time, and getting to hear feedback on your work, it’s given an introduction to contemporary art that you wouldn’t get elsewhere. It really has been a great place to grow. Getting to be in my studio for 40+ hours a week is really great.

A dedicated studio practice is what has really been the most rewarding. Now I feel like after spending time in graduate school, I know what I need to do to maintain a studio practice. Even though I won’t have as much time to dedicate to my own work.

SG: And how has the BU community informed how you’ve been working? Lee, you said if you hadn’t been here, you wouldn’t have grown so quickly. What do you mean by this speed of development?

LM: A big part of that speed is being in the studio every single day. But then getting

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feedback from people all the time—because I can go into anyone’s studio and ask, “hey, can you come look at this?” And they do. After grad school I think it’s going to be really difficult to get someone to care enough to come critique my work.

Claire Roll, Sculpture: I’ve learned that intentional community is important to artistic growth. Pushing yourself forward through informal critiques with peers, and even just seeing other people’s work regularly, is really influential. That’s one of the reasons why I wish the graduate programs—painting, sculpture, and graphic design—were even closer, because I think the way that it seems the graphic design program approaches its field in an artful and process-oriented way, it could be really fruitful to see how our programs could start working together more closely. Having conversations that aren’t necessarily about specific pieces but are about the contemporary art context, and theory, and things like that, have been really important to me as well.

SG: So have these conversations affected change in your work? Do you think there’s something about the BU community specifically that led it in one direction or another?

LM: Yes. For my work, I was always very antilandscape, and my work has always been about identity issues. Being here, every year the painting department has a trip to Maine where all of the graduate students are invited to work for a week in the landscape. And you can do whatever you want, really—Claire did these really cool braided grass pieces.

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“I’ve learned that intentional community is important to artistic growth. Pushing yourself forward through informal critiques with peers, and even just seeing other people’s work regularly, is really influential.”

CR: My hay pieces—they made me so angry. [laughs] LM: I feel like that was a really informative experience. Talking to other people about landscape painting, while being in the landscape, and realizing that it was actually a great place to be thinking about identity—there are a lot of connections there, surprisingly. And I had to be opened up to that idea and realize that there was room for me in that conversation.

“In my field I think there’s a division, where there are a lot of graphic designers who feel like they can’t be truly creative in their own practice because the field is meant to serve a client. So it’s really difficult to find a balance. Being at BU—I don’t think I’ve found it quite yet—but I’m definitely well on my way.”

Elise Jones, Graphic Design: I feel like I had a similar change in my work. When I came here, I felt like my inner designer/artist finally could come out. In my undergraduate program I learned under someone who was a working graphic designer in the commercial field, at a fashion magazine, so I was trained in a very specific way. There was never really an emphasis on what I was interested in or how I wanted to design. From undergrad I went straight into advertising and that really solidified that style of working for me. And although I feel I was doing good work, I always felt like something was missing.

When I first came here I struggled a lot, because I was making everything in terms of advertising, and it took me a little while in the beginning of my first semester to figure out that I can do anything I want and make a case for it as graphic design, and that’s supported here. It’s encouraged. In my field I think there’s a division, where there are a lot of graphic designers who feel like they can’t be truly creative in their own practice because the field is meant to serve a client. So it’s really difficult to find a balance.

Being at BU—I don’t think I’ve found it quite yet—but I’m definitely well on my way.

SG: Lee and Elise, you’ve both said something similar here—you were able to integrate the concept of identity in your work in a new and productive way, based on the community and situation that you’re in here. I think that’s really fantastic and kind of the point of graduate

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school, no?

CR: It’s funny to hear you say what you said, Lee. Because I feel like I had a reverse experience.

Well—not in the sense of progress in my work but how my work was affected. I was really attached to the figure, when I came into BU. And that’s one of the reasons I came here— because [Sculpture Professor] Batu Siharulidze is a figure powerhouse. I spent my whole year of my post-baccalaureate at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts fighting to prove that the figure was worth working on. And I came here and everyone was like, “Yeah, we know.

We know it’s worth it.” So I felt freed by that. It ended up feeling like the figure was something that I had been holding on to because I felt so strongly that I wanted it to matter—but it didn’t necessarily need to be a part of my work anymore.

SG: So it seems like the BU community has really given you all the space to expand individually into your work. What about the city? I think Boston is a unique place to be learning. It’s a city that’s full of universities, full of learning, full of intelligent people and for me that’s very important to my work and I’m curious if that had any bearing on the experience for any of you.

EJ: I always traveled by car prior to coming here.

But when I came here I moved into the city and I figured the MBTA was the easier option (except for last winter). I live in Roslindale, which is less than five miles from here. Even though I live less than five miles from campus, it still takes me an hour to get to and from BU. So I definitely can speak to the city affecting my experience.

I have a lot of time commuting where I’m just observing things that I wouldn’t have if I were in my car. And I think that gets my mind going—I’ll be thinking about my work or writing in my sketchbook, and that definitely affects a part of my work.

CR: It’s funny that you mention the T, Elise.

Because I take the T all the time too and sketching on the T, people watching, noticing things that you wouldn’t normally notice,

is really important, as a part of your artistic practice, at least for me. So, that’s been great.

SG: It’s so interesting that you both talk about riding the T because personally I think I am the most productive when I’m on public transportation. I think that the kind of thinking that we do in these intermedial spaces that are in-between and transitory can be kind of transformative. Do you think the city’s landscape has come into your work at all?

LM: Definitely—A lot of my imagery comes from the city. I stage the paintings but a lot of the images come from things I see when I’m walking around and I think about how the city would look in a painting.

CR: Right, like simple relationships that you all of a sudden notice because you’re more aware of things because you think, wow I love how that surface layers in front of that texture and that roughness. That also happens for me all the time—through different types of images. So when I’m in nature—it’s way different than if I’m in the city and see a piece of gum that’s been stepped on and it has a cool texture next to the cement. I might sound crazy…

SG: No! I think that’s really important because what strikes me about both of your work, Lee and Claire, is the interplay between the natural and the man-made. So it is interesting to me to think about how we’re in this urban place and you’re both drawing so heavily on these natural textures and images of nature.

LM: Well, my work is all about, borrowing a phrase from Harmony Hammond, “the naturalization of culture and the culturalization of the natural.” And that sort of literalizes what I’m trying to show in my work. The city is all man-made—the beach across the river is manmade, and we choose what plants are here and so that concept of the landscapes of the city has been really interesting to me.

SG: Aside from taking the T, what kind of habits have you developed here that you didn’t have

before that you think will contribute to your success as an artist after BU?

access to bookmaking classes and facilities, has been really valuable to me.

LM: I feel like something that was really ingrained in us by [Painting Professor Emeritus] John Walker was to have a serious drawing practice. He told us that we will be such better artists if we draw every day. And I tried it for a while and I feel like it’s true and I think that’s something that I would like to keep doing more after graduate school.

SG: That links a lot with this idea about drawing, and maintaining a closeness with what you’re making.

EJ: Before I came to BU I never thought that I could do things off the computer. Probably because I was so used to working in a fast paced environment that required me to take short cuts to make work for the purpose of making money. But since last spring, I barely use my computer to design things. Instead, I do a lot of collage and then I’ll photograph it and put it on the computer and do the typography on the computer—but I’m currently working on handmade typography as well. I make books all the time. And that was something that was missing for me before I came here and it’s such a habit now.

In graphic design I feel like a lot of people design things just using the computer and they rely on the tools there. But I feel like for my work, the handmade craft, knowing how to cut paper perfectly or sew bindings, understanding how things are made informs my personal style so much and I just wish more graphic designers would consider doing it. But at BU that part of my work is supported so much and the resources that I have to draw on, for example

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CR: I think that time in the studio taught me to be less precious with my work. As an undergrad I spent a lot of time in the studio but you can’t spend as much as you want to. Here my attention is not divided and the focus is on making—so I can make my process instead of just my pieces. So I feel like a lot of my time is spent building my process as an object, and less about creating finished pieces that are gallery ready. That has been completely transformative in my work. I think that’s probably the biggest take away for me.

EJ: It’s like the habit of experimentation— CR: Yeah, exactly.

EJ: I also can relate to that. I used to think everything had to be perfect and ready to go to print.

CR: Or be graded.

EJ: Right, but you should still attempt experiments whether they turn out or not.

SG: Can we end here, on the habit of experimentation? I hope we’ve all developed that.

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Elise Jones is a Boston-based graphic designer and artist from Pittsfield, Massachusetts. She has a BA
in Graphic Design from Salve Regina University and will earn a Master of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design from Boston University in May, 2016. Before attending graduate school, Elise gained experience working as a graphic designer at a top-25 Boston advertising agency. While in school, she has served as Art Director at a Boston start-up, worked as a graphic designer for Boston University, and ran a freelance business, EAJ Design.

Native to Little Rock, Arkansas, Leeanne Maxey will graduate in May, 2016 from Boston University with an MFA in painting, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is a nominee for the Dedalus Foundation MFA Fellowship.

Maxey received the Constantin Alajalov Scholarship for two consecutive years as well as a merit scholarship from the Boston University College of Fine Arts. She also received an Undergraduate Research Grant for Education from the Schedlers Honors College at the University of Central Arkansas to travel to South Africa in 2009. Her work has been exhibited in Richmond, VA; Boston, MA; Hudson, NY; and at the Arkansas Arts Center, and is in the Rare Books Collection at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.

Originally from Upstate New York, Claire E. Roll graduated from Gordon College with a BA degree in studio art, concentrating in sculpture. She completed her Post-Baccalaureate program at the School of the Museum of Fine arts in 2014 and is now a Masters of Fine Arts Candidate at Boston University. Her work has been commissioned by the Center for the Arts at Endicott College in Beverly, MA; Roberts Wesleyan College in North Chili, NY; and Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church in Somerville, MA. Roll has exhibited at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, NY; Khaki Gallery in Boston; and the Nave Gallery in Somerville. Private collections include La Volpara in Santa Maria Monteleone in Orvieto, Italy.

Sasha Goldman is a doctoral candidate studying Modern and Contemporary Art and exhibition culture at Boston University. Her research focuses on Italian art and exhibition histories in the twentieth century with particular interests in artist-driven publications and exhibition catalogues, temporary exhibitions and fairs, museum architecture, and urban landscapes.

Kamal Ahmad Sulaimani, Kurdistan

k.art983@yahoo.com

The beginning of my artistic journey dates back to my childhood. As I grew up, I found myself in a context shattered by the cruel realities of wars. As I was walking through my early years, the eight-year-long Iran–Iraq War was exhausting my home, the Kurdistan Region, which happens to be directly between the two warring countries. Near the end of the 1980s, I was nearly devoured by a genocidal campaign against the Kurds, the al-Anfal Campaign. The list goes on, with the Gulf War, a civil war, and conflicts that continue up to the present. These vicissitudes of life greatly shaped my artistic upbringing.

My early amazement with art, and especially painting, gradually developed into a sort of love, a deeply committed and critical love. I found myself increasingly critical and unsatisfied with 16

Painting

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Untitled, 2015, oil and acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60"

the forms of the reality of my world that had been distorted, nonetheless by human beings.

Questions started to ferment: How can I find the means of recreating and beautifying distorted forms? What can I do as an individual? What can painting do?

I had things to say. There was much personal and collective suffering and agony to express.

Painting and visual art were the means that came to the rescue; through them, I could try to build a world much more colorful and familiar to me. I still have more to say and express.

Different forms found their ways into my paintings, forms that were sometimes unusual, but very perceptible. The source of the variety of forms is the cultural fabric of my society and the unstable phases my region has gone

through. My work features themes ranging from war, religion, violence, victimhood, and identity, among others. The root of the themes comes from my background, and with each work those roots grow into new forms.

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Untitled, 2015, mixed media on canvas, 80 x 90"

Untitled, 2015, mixed media on canvas, 80 x 90"

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Moneira Albanyan Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

@mon.designs albanyanm@gmail.com

As a designer, part of solving a problem is being able to communicate the solutions to the world we live in. After many years of studying graphic design, I have learned that the most important thing in any project is the process itself. In order to create creative designs that communicate well, we have to believe that the process will unravel the solutions to do so. Being a designer means that I own one of the most important tools of communication, one that knows no borders or boundaries, one that is visual. Recently, after realizing how much of a powerful tool I have at my disposal, my interests have shifted to start designing projects that reflect my own personal experiences that led to changes in my life. The challenge has always been how to make the personal experience a universal one that the audience can relate to.

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Graphic Design

Mindsets are the key to any change, and to shift a mindset you will have to change the way you perceive things. During the two years of my graduate studies, I realized that challenging the viewer’s perception is a quality I want to continue to have in the projects I design.

Social problems that we face in our society have always been a concern of mine as a person and as a designer. Materialism is a social problem we are facing today. Owning goods and consuming products that we don’t need has become the most important factors in defining who we are as people and as a society. In my opinion, giving “things” the full control to define who I am is a problem, a problem that I was, and still am, a victim of. In my thesis project, I am challenging the viewer’s perception through my commentary on materialism.

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Wanderlust within, 2015, print, 4x4"

Can you see it?, 2015, 
print, 15 x 22"

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Living like a drawing compass, 2015, 
wood, 12 x 24"

Madeleine Bialke Boston, Massachusetts

Second Nature, 2016, oil on canvas 60 x 60"

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Painting

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mbialke@gmail.com

The visual arts can foster an empathetic connection between humanity and the external world. In the wake of climate change and natural resource depletion, natural spaces have changed structurally, as have artistic perceptions of them. My work focuses on the idea that the divide between man and nature increased by industrialization prohibits an outdoor space from being fully realized by the human eye. I intend to engage with traditional ideas of the sublime northern landscape, yet align to the current chapter of natural history. This body of work began with an etching drawn on a mountaintop in Maine as a point of departure; repeating it on canvases of varying sizes and color moods. The color is intended to read both as temperature and emotion, and the build-up of marks creates a visual hum. The paintings, once removed from a direct perceptual record, refer to themselves and do not rely on their relationship to the alluded to place. Through repetition and increased reliance on each redrawn image, the paintings contain a synthetic quality that suggests the imposition of an order upon the landscape structure yet simultaneously suggests motion, sound, and light.

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Dog Days, 2016, oil on canvas, 60 x 36"

Xiaoshuang Chen Fuzhou, China

xiaoshuangch@gmail.com

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Graphic Design

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Storybook of friendship, 2015, book, dimensions variable

We are living in an age of flooding information and materials. Graphic design as a method of information communication influences our lives in various ways. Therefore, designers have a responsibility to actively and effectively use communication to convey significant concepts, since they play the most important role in this process.

I believe that designers should not only create good design with good ideas, but also disseminate positive energy to society in their works. Designers should use the power of their profession and their talent to guide people towards healthy values and worldviews through visual language, aiming to raise awareness of the social, cultural, natural, and scientific problems surrounding us, and leading people to do something helpful for the sustainable

development of their social environment.

Although it is a small action, there will be a meaningful effect.

While expressing content and concept, I believe design works should also bring viewers an aesthetic enjoyment and a level of craftsmanship. I am particularly interested in craft. I enjoy slow processes, like handmade books, which require patience, concentration, and practice. These works stand out in an era of fast results and machine-made forms.

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The Moon, 2015, book, 1 x 1"

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Ye (Yve) Chen Shanghai, China

yvechye@gmail.com yvechen.com

I like creating design work as an unexpected experience. I believe through inviting audience participation in design work and conveying a message through a fun, interactive experience, it can be very engaging and meaningful for both sides in a design communication.

I believe design is far more than just using software to beautify things or creating images from nowhere, but is about finding problems or phenomena in something that interests me in daily life, then providing a better solution or inspiring people to think or question through the design process. Thinking out of the box and being sensitive and curious to little things changing in people’s lives are the most important parts of design.

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Graphic Design

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A System for the book “Six Memos For the Next Millennium”, 2014, printed paper, Rubik’s cube, 4 x 4"

I like doing research that forces me to keep asking “why” and keep finding answers deeper and deeper in each step of the design process.

The progress of this research always inspires me; I enjoying making things by hand and experimenting, and like working on different formats, from traditional printmaking to digital motion graphics. These are not just skills but a way to explore my brain and the world.

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How Does Information Go Viral? Board Game, 2015, paper, 26 x 18"

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Talking in 201?—Social Media Language, 2016, interactive web project

Andy Crusham Cincinnati, Ohio

The relationship between art and nature has a considerably long and rich history. The darker exploration of human nature, and its translation into the visual world particularly, are what drive me to create the images that I make.

How the past affects the present, and the ability to truly exist presently in our current lives, are some of the most central themes of my work.

The psychological repercussions behind past and oftentimes violent traumas, both lesser and major in scale, are something we often try to conceal and repress through much effort and façade. It’s in this duality between the often pleasantly artificial and decorative exterior image on the surface and a much more conflicting, despairing image embedded underneath that I believe a search for a certain humanity begins.

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Painting

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Intrusion of warmth, 2016, oil on wood panel, 18 x 24"

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What is necessary, 2015, gouache and acrylic on paper, 82.5 x 82.5"

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It finds you, 2016, gouache and acrylic on paper, 69.5 x 89"

Graduate painting & sculpture studio, 808 Commonwealth Avenue

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Graduate graphic design studio, 840 Commonwealth Avenue; photo by Joshua Duttweiler

Shane Davis Glenside, Pennsylvania

The human body is a strange thing

The way it moves, the mechanics of it

The human mind is a strange thing

The way it thinks, the way it operates

The human soul is a strange thing

The way it almost might not be there

Human beings are a strange thing, all told

I simply celebrate that

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Painting

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obviously just a painting of screaming faces… right?, 2016, latex and acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60"

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A Gentle Touch, 2016, latex and acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60"

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Somewhat sensibly solipsistic, 2016, ink and gesso on canvas, 20 x 23"

Adam Eddy Charleston, South Carolina

ameddy.com adammeddy@gmail.com

My work utilizes formal painting decisions to address the notion of self. I combine color and form into organizations that define physical bodies in fluid terms. The works borrow structures observed in everyday life and use them as formats for abstract painting and proxies for the human body. This intersection of observation and interpretation opens possibilities of meaning specific to each viewer.

It is important to me that each painting have some intimation of functionality or structural integrity. This creates the possibility of physical

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Painting

interaction between object and viewer, an empathic conversation between their body and this other kind of body. My aim is to challenge the assumption that the self is a fixed and definable entity, decided by social hierarchies and separate from its environment. Dissolving these boundaries is essential to developing a complex moral understanding of one’s relationship to others and the Earth.

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Pink Ladder, 2016, oil on canvas, 72 x 22"

Verso with Clouds, 2015, oil on canvas, 48 x 36"

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Umbrella (1), 2016, oil on canvas, 47 x 47"

Ge Feng Shandong, China

ffeng2012@gmail.com

“Design,” said Steve Jobs, “is a funny word.

Some people think design means how it looks.

But, of course, if you dig deeper, it’s how it really works.” The great guru of Apple’s desirable tech hit on something big. Design is not necessarily about the product—it is about the experience.

It is something much bigger than the thing we think we are buying. It is about how something feels and makes us feel. Good design is not just what looks good. It also needs to perform, convert, astonish, and fulfill its purpose. It can be innovative or it might just get the job done.

A good design cannot be measured in a finite way—multiple perspectives are needed.

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Graphic Design

My experience taught me as a designer to use myoverall skills in arts and the humanities as well as science and technology. A good design is effective and efficient in fulfilling its purpose.

It relies on as few external factors and inputs as possible, and these are easy to measure and manipulate to achieve an expected output. A good design is always the simplest possible working solution. I believe that my achievements demonstrate not only these skills but also a creative approach to solving problems.

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Book Design, 2015, mixed media, 5 x 6.25"

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Type Book, 2015, paper, 5 x 7.5"

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Yo-yo Ma Performance Poster, 2015, paper, 25 x 36"

Xinling Hu Nanjing, China

xinlinghu@yeah.net

Graphic design is a profoundly communicative medium and I enjoy communicating across boundaries and subject areas, exploring the ever-changing context and function of visual communication.

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Graphic Design

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A book of my friend, book, 5.5 x 7"

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Dream Book, book, 5.5 x 5.5"

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50 variations, book, 6 x 9"

Ran Jin Beijing, China

euca.ran@gmail.com

I believe that a good graphic designer should not just be a good problem solver, they should also be a good storyteller, to induce people to feel, to consider, to realize, and to produce thoughts similar to the designer’s intention.

I appreciate those designers who, when commissioned for a real commercial project, base their work on the essence of research, and 60

Graphic Design

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Love Letter, ink on Rives BFK and hemp paper, 15 x 8.5"

in an intriguing way explore a phenomenon or a behavior using experiments or explorations to express their design thinking. Sometimes it is not only the completion of a project but also the means through the project that arouses something that we usually ignore, just a flash in one’s mind in daily life.

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B3 Travel Notes, 2015, ink on paper, 11 x 23.3"

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Kite’s Project 2, 2015, ink on paper, hemp paper, and wool, 8.5 x 11"

Elise Angela Jones Pittsfield, Massachusetts

eajdesign.com eljonesdesign@gmail.com

We live in a fast-paced, technology-saturated world. Due to centuries spent in pursuit of doing things quicker, slowness is often viewed in a negative light. Regardless of how fast tasks or projects are accomplished, people still find themselves deprived of time. For graphic designers, the expectation to perform amazing feats, in increasingly shrinking time frames, elevates the risk of producing mediocre results with little meaning.

It’s incredible what one can achieve with a computer and software alone, but the machine is merely
a robotic extension of the human hand, and the numbing act of clicking and typing in order to manipulate a digital canvas can result in unfulfilling work. The time has come for

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Graphic Design

designers to pursue a slower, more balanced process. By reducing speed, creativity will be elevated, effectiveness will be enhanced, and the work produced will be of greater quality.

In my work as a graphic designer, I have embraced the idea of Slow Design. My goal is to approach each project with the notion that some percentage of the work will be done by hand. With this type of constraint, the work is founded on an unhurried process, and the stage is set for sensational design. By slowing down, 
a deeper beauty and greater impact will be achieved not only for the designer, but for their audience as well.

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Celebrating Marie, 2015, digital prints on Epson premium paper, 4 x 4"

Upcycle Anthology, 2014, Latka paper and salvaged wood, 8 x 8"

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Delicate Sameness, 2015, oil-based paint on acrylic plates, 5.5 x 5.5"

Ethan Kolwaite Worcester, Massachusetts

ethankolwaite.com ekolwaite@gmail.com

Painting and drawing are inherently spiritual actions. Spirituality stems from self-awareness.

Self-awareness begs sentient beings to ask the questions: Who am I? What am I? What is my purpose? Art-making is the non-verbal process of exploring these deep questions.

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Painting

Through my exploration I have learned that the heart is vast, and that the existence of fate and free will live simultaneously together and create the absurd. I have learned that painting is an act of love.

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Floral-River-Goat, 2015, oil on canvas, 79 x 79"

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Four Lost, Headless Dancing in the Gut-Womb of Mother Nature, 2016, oil on paper, 120 x 151"

Sascha LaFave Boston, Massachusetts

saschalafave@gmail.com saschalafave.com

Over the last two years my body of work has been centered on creating portraits of people who are close to my own life. These paintings reference the classical tradition of portraiture, tending toward realism with an illustrative approach. Figures are centralized within each composition and surrounded by personal objects and culturally familiar symbols. These objects and symbols are indicative of each figure’s inner world, experiences, and opinions— and, by extension, the experiences of people within or close to their own demographic.

Moreover, because these are specific elements and interests mined from each of the figures’ lives, a deeper dialogue can ensue between each particular person being depicted and myself.

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Painting

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Son, 2014, oil on canvas, 36 x 48"

In such a way, these portraits can be seen as human interest pieces, involving a great deal of collaboration, as well as a look at contemporary American life.

Several motifs are pervasive throughout this body of work. One example of such can be found in the act of ingestion: within each portrait, figures are often entering the act of consuming some form of food, drink, substance, or idea. This can be viewed both literally and symbolically and additionally functions as a nod at Western consumerism. Another consistency is a shrine-like composition. While this at first can be understood as emblematic of religious imagery, it also lends to the idea of the working-

class hero. It can also be viewed as a certain glorification of the creative mind when taking into consideration that each represented figure’s profession happens to fall into an artistic category.

One last motif that can be seen throughout this body of work is the overarching notion of escapism. This can be seen in moments of the consumptive acts depicted, in references to manifest destiny, religion, and even in small moments such as the representation of a person’s collection, or the untapped potential of a light switch or power outlet.

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Portrait of Beccah I, 2015, oil on canvas, 36 x 48"

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Lisa’s Letterpress Collection, 2015, oil on canvas, 34 x 20"

Corey M. Larue Sacramento, California

Grandma said, “Mijo Get me that rolling pin.”

The sound of her fist against the dough went: Pom, Pom, Pom. Then she yelled Something in Spanish that I couldn’t understand. from “Broken Stories from an East L.A Kitchen”

by Josh Fernandez

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Painting

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Rite and Ritual, 2015, oil, enamel, and sage ash on canvas, 24 x 72"

Con Safos, 2016, oil, spray paint, string, bandana, and lard on canvas, 48 x 72"

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Xocolatl, 2016, chocolate, leaves, string, and bandana on canvas, 48 x 60"

Eung-Sun Lee Boston, Massachusetts

eungsun@gmail.com

My work investigates the notion of the ephemeral and the attempt to evoke and prolong a particular state of mind or a chance incident that cannot be replicated. I look for a visceral quality achieved through indirect processes driven by a concern for visual and psychological potency. An atmospheric, diaphanous quality layered with graphic, linear elements is used to approximate particular phenomena of fleeting experiences as well as perceptual sensations of light and air.

Intimations of elusive impressions are revealed though color, scale, luminosity, and touch. At the crux of the visual content are the emotional implications and the suggestions of familiar perceptual occurrences.

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Painting

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Untitled, 2015, oil on canvas, 74 x 97"

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Untitled, 2015 oil on canvas 72.5 x 72.5"

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Untitled, 2015, oil on canvas, 65 x 65.5"

Pan Lin Beijing, China

For a long time, I assumed that I understood the topic of my discussion with painting. I attempted to grasp something meaningful from our conversations, or to achieve some kind of outcome that I could anticipate. Gradually, I learned that I have to listen carefully, to be sensitive to her response while continuing our conversation. The precise treatment and decision making on the canvases come out of the persistent act of trying. Painting is not about

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Painting

what I attempt to do, or to create; I have to give myself to the painting, to trust her, to have her tell me what to do. I need to pay attention to events happening in the act of painting, the changes, and the chain effect. It excites me when a new configuration appears as the result of visual elements being shifted—even by accident—on the canvas.

adolescence, 2015, oil on linen, 82 x 61"

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obsession, 2015, oil on linen, 72 x 56"

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humble, 2015, oil on linen, 30 x 24"

Leeane Maxey Little Rock, Arkansas

leeannemaxey.com

The principle topic in my work is an examination of gender and sexuality as a continuous, yet always fluid, performance. As a lesbian that grew up in the American South, my identities have often been at odds with the ideologies embedded in my evangelical familial culture and larger immediate community. I am constantly deconstructing those beliefs in order to both question them and to generate a conversation.

Whenever I have a conversation with my family about what it means to be gay, I often hear the idea that it is not “natural,” which of course relies on the presumptions that humans have an innate sexuality and that an essential femininity exists. I utilize imagery of organic matter to further delve into the idea of “natural” versus “unnatural” and the making of the self.

I primarily use watercolor as my medium on both canvas and paper. I sometimes employ other media, such as textiles, oil paint, and printmaking, for conceptual statements. Dress to the Left, a self-portrait of my crotch and thighs uncomfortably entangled by lacey underwear, was painted with oil to overtly link it to the long history of the female nude in oil painting. The wallpaper-like textile that hangs behind it is

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based on a watercolor painting of leaves and ferns, emphasizing the relationships between the body, nature, and the commodification of both in the floral-patterned underwear. My image sources are personal photographs in which I stage loved ones, objects, or myself in order to produce a narrative. Patterns are an integral tool in the construction of these narratives, and I both fabricate and seek them out. Through my artistic practice, I hope to open a dialogue that extends beyond intellectual, creative communities by inspiring and fostering discussions about identity and the synergetic shaping of society by groups and individuals.

Another significant theme in my work is an interest in closeness and intimate looking. My paintings require intense, careful examination to create them, and I intend to provide a similarly engrossing experience for viewers. In one series of current work, I meld abstraction and realism by making realistically painted plants and body parts function as abstract shapes and patterns, thereby commenting on the fabrication of our ideas and bodily performances.

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Cemented, 2016, watercolor on canvas over board, 8.69 x 8.69"

Dress to the Left, 2015, oil on canvas over board and inkjet on cotton, 13 x 21" and 55.5 x 41.25"

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Undergrowth, 2015, watercolor on paper, 6 x 9"

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Graduate painting studio, 808 Commonwealth Avenue

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Graduate graphic design studio, 840 Commonwealth Avenue; photo by Joshua Duttweiler

Smil-e, 2016, acrylic, flashe, and colored pencil on canvas 72 x 59"

Painting

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Drew Pate Fitzgerald, Georgia

drewpateart.com andrewcpate@gmail.com

I am interested in the geometry of the everyday and excited by simple, recognizable shapes such as circles, rectangles, squares, and triangles. I am fascinated by the way that these geometries come together to shape the habitat in which we reside and am constantly aware of the relationship between my body and a physical architectural space or an object.

Arranging and composing an image within this limited inventory of visual material is reminiscent of the experiences that many of us have as children, engaging in playful creative activity for the sake of mental stimulation and exploration.

Painting is a way of filtering my thoughts and emotions related to these experiences through my own body and onto the body of a stretched canvas. I believe that there is an interface between the painting object and myself.

The resulting images oscillate between an allusion of space and subversion of depth to reemphasize the flat surface of the painting.

Through this method, my paintings play with a specific kind of narrative that evokes the passage of time as I travel from one place to another as a pedestrian or passenger.

But where traditional linear narrative utilizes compartmentalization to delineate an ordered sequence of events, my paintings suggest a unified simultaneity, allowing the viewer to craft a path of his or her own through the work, and providing an experience as unique as the individual.

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Portal, 2016, acrylic and flashe on canvas, 79 x 48"

RembinhĂştur (Knot), 2016, oil, acrylic, flashe, and graphite on canvas, 74.5 x 61.5"

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Claire E. Roll Arlington, Massachusetts

claireeliseroll.com claireeliseroll@gmail.com

My work is about instinct, embracing it and subverting it, forming it and freeing it until the external meets the internal. The work is a testament to the strength and cerebral rawness of feminine intentionality. Visually the work encounters the history of objects and their making, encompassing architecture and its function, suggesting public and private narratives that include gender, ritual, and the duality of communal and personal identity.

I find inspiration in the body—physical and emotional—in random occurrence, the process of improvisation, and the liberating acceptance of all materials as viable options for making sculpture.

I experiment reciprocally using additive and subtractive processes as tools to break apart 100

Sculpture

my own conventional and logical tendencies.

Combining raw, reclaimed, and disjunctive materials is an attempt to find poetry in vibrational harmony. Accumulation and erasure allow the sum of materials to push beyond their original singularity. Materials that retain their identity and remain ever unique as a part of a larger whole, ignore rationality, break apart limitations, and embrace a fullness of being.

The large-scale work challenges my proportionality and defines space as an enigmatic entity, both physical and transcendent. The correlation of a structure to the bodies moving through it engages space as an extension of identity, as a tangible representation of investigative journey, ritual, and communion. It signifies an act of finding, of

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Release, 2015, concrete, expansion foam, and found wood, 70 x 36 x 24"

Origin, 2016, concrete, plaster, walnut, steel, 64 x 77 x 13"

becoming and unbecoming, of moving forward and standing still. The Feminine ceases to function as a void and instead offers a “place� to find rest, an opening and unfolding to the presence of space; a mirror of the opportunity to be filled and emboldened, an example of strength in offering oneself to another, and tangible evidence of the origin that nurtures and fosters growth.

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Untitled, 2016, plaster and steel, 23 x 17 x 8"

Erin Leigh Sanders Greenwich, Connecticut

erinleighsanders.com

To quote Rick Riordan, “Who says he’s seeing this place the way we’re seeing it? Humans see what they want to see.”

The interpretive element is the defining one of art, or is it something more? For that matter, is it something? The definition of art is open, subjective, and debatable. Today, art is an evolving and global concept, open to new interpretation and too fluid to be pinned down. Depending on the context in which it is presented, what is the value of subjectivity versus objectivity? I believe that we are so consumed by the final product that we forget about the relationship between communication and perception.

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Graphic Design

I am fascinated by perception and how we, as artists, can challenge or manipulate it. I like to provoke questions and spark moments of awareness in viewers. With the use of an unusual medium or a simple, conceptual design, the image immediately becomes open to interpretation. As a graphic designer, my intention is to make a statement and to impact an audience. I am a minimalist driven by type and fascinated by awareness.

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Ode to Odyssey, mixed media, 36 x 42"

Gluten Free Anthology, mixed media-book design, 8 x 6"

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Variations, poster, 12 x 18"

Marianne Sami Schoucair Beirut, Lebanon marianneschoucair.com marianneschoucair@gmail.com

We inhabit an ultra fast-paced world and therefore we find it hard to pause, reflect, and question. An absolute system, whereby the media and the West dictate how we think, behave, and function, is a system that enforces apathy rather than meaningful dialogue, engagement, and active participation.

Technology in all its increasing forms has also made sure we are easily led by the trivial, the visual, the shocking, and the things that are instant gratification to us, never mind the addictive effect they expound or the impacts on social interactions they degrade.

More often than not, graphic design created to make meaning or voice an opinion has been relegated to the deepest shelves of our consciousness, in favor of superficial and templated design for which the most important

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Graphic Design

Ode to Solitude, 2015, artists’ book, 8.25 x 5"

value is a consumer-oriented one, intended to follow trends blindly, disregarding the soul that empowers it to be different, engaging and creative, and most importantly to provoke an audience to question what they believe.

In my endeavor to challenge established convention and build on where I stand as a designer today, and where I wish to point myself in the future. I choose to use any design opportunity to continue on my artistic exploration towards a growth in my belief system that design is my tool to engage my audience intelligently and creatively. I love creating surrealist images that use visual metaphor to convey a message. Communication through image-making that will make you stop and think because it blends things that do not necessarily exist hand in hand in the real

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world. The power of the graphic designer to make a point or voice an opinion using some strong images that leave a mark, images that transcend the original meaning and add more depth, heart, and soul to communicate a certain specific new message.

Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett, 2015, book jacket design, digital print, 6.5 x 9.5"

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Of Love and War, 2014, anthology book, 5 x 5"

blue painting for your florida wall, 2015, oil on canvas, 26 x 50"

Aliza Sternstein

Long Island, New York

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alizasternstein.com alizasternstein@gmail.com

100 words choices the ones that are made the ones that aren’t made history isn’t going anywhere. like a ripple sometimes at some point you don’t know where it began they’re paintings that believe. where the gesture becomes line is the process important? the origin is important the pale cold light of the winter sunset does not beautify it tells the truth slow striations go vertical, a smear of skyward how do you think your ideas in color? a diminished flush fugue last light, chance of day make it lopsided *an architecture of thought that’s there and not-there a mythical mystical foundation are the potencies in awkward restraint or its opposite? simultaneous depths hovering, emerging contradicting itself how do you think your ideas in color a diminished flush fugue luminosity built up handmade human an upward ladder

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studio wall 2 (this ain’t no disco), 2016, oil and acrylic on canvas, 49.5 x 60"

Sia Xie Chengdu, China

siaxx333@gmail.com

What does design mean to me? I’ve thought about this over the years.

using the most simple, diverse, and effective way to communicate with people.

A few years ago, when I just started to learn graphic design, I thought it was what we create for aesthetic value. Pleasure, comfort, excitement, sadness—we will get an affective resonance through our design as if it is our first love.

But now it seems like design sublimates my awareness of it again. It is not just visual communication, but an experience. It uses interactivity to link everyone together, not just to conveying information to users but also measuring value from the user’s perspective to create a real, effective experience for them.

Four years later, when I graduated, design meant something different to me. It conveys information, our attitude to the world, what future life will be, what the world looks like now,

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All of my work now is based on experience of design, and it makes me explore and create new areas of design’s value.

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Shake Shake—Fitness Experience Design Book, 2015, book, 4 x 5.5"

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Insecurity, 2015, glass, 6 x 6 x 6"

50 Days of Japan Posters, 2015, poster, 12 x 15"

Eyes Journey, 2014, print, 6.5 x 8.5"

Yue (Joyee) Zhou Nanjing, China Behance.net/yuejoyee

Be specific.

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Graphic Design

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Coca Cola Poster Variation, 2015, digital prints, 5.5 x 7" each

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The Life of a Star, 2015, print, 26 x 22"

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CFA School of Visual Arts Logo Exploration, 2015, digital graphic

ABOUT THE SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS AT B O S T O N UNIVERSITY

The School of Visual Arts at Boston University College of Fine Arts offers a rigorous fine art program that is rooted in studio practice and gives students the tools to continue learning and growing long after they leave our doors. Our graduate programs in the bedrock disciplines of the fine arts are coupled with a vast array of electives and opportunities that come from our position within a major University.

At the School of Visual Arts at Boston University, you will have experiences that foster your career and broaden your horizons.

Our Contemporary Perspectives Lecture Series brings the best talents and brightest minds in the art world to campus for lectures and studio visits. Our facilities, including a media lab, welding and wood shops, a state of the art printmaking studio, and individual studios for painters and sculptors, provide you with all the necessary tools to create the work you envision, as does access to the Engineering Product Innovation Center, which is readily available to our students. Boston’s internationally renowned museums, galleries, and arts organizations are close at hand for inspiration and professional opportunities.

Our award-winning faculty have work in the collections of major art museums across the globe, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Our alumni have careers in exciting creative fields (Pixar, InStyle magazine, Converse, Museum of Modern Art), develop innovative businesses, and exhibit their work widely in galleries across the US and beyond.

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We invite you to discover more about Boston University School of Visual Arts and the many accomplishments of our faculty, students, and alumni by visiting bu.edu/cfa/visual-arts.

Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally recognized institution of higher education and research. With more than 33,000 students, it is the fourth–largest independent university in the United States. BU consists of 16 schools and colleges, along with a number of multi-disciplinary centers and institutes integral to the University’s research and teaching mission. In 2012, BU joined the Association of American Universities (AAU), a consortium of 62 leading research universities in the United States and Canada. Established in 1954, Boston University College of Fine Arts (CFA) is a top-tier fine arts institution. Comprising of the School of Music, School of Theatre, and School of Visual Arts, CFA offers professional training in the arts in conservatory-style environments for undergraduate and graduate students, complemented by a liberal arts curriculum for undergraduate students.

© 2016 Designed by Alicia DeWitt Printed by Kirkwood Printing in Wilmington, MA Published on the occasion of the 2016 Graduate Thesis Exhibition April 8–24, 2016 808 Gallery, 808 Commonwealth Avenue Stone Gallery, 855 Commonwealth Avenue

Boston University School of Visual Arts 855 Commonwealth Avenue Boston MA, 02215 617-353-3371 bu.edu/cfa/visual-arts