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SCHOOL OF ART GRADUATE STUDENT SHOWCASE 2021 University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning

Table of Contents

School of Art Graduate Students 12 – 13

Andrea Chemero

22 – 23

Rachel Linnemann

14 – 15

Nickolas Collins

24 – 25

Giulia Palazzo

16 – 17

Todd Gries

26 – 27

Josie Love Roebuck

18 – 19

Grant King

28 – 29

Cody Schriever

20 – 21

Kirsten I. Ledbetter

30 – 31

Sara Torgison

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A special note of thanks to DAAP Dean Timothy Jachna, Associate Dean Claudia Rebola, Associate Dean Ann Black, Graduate Studies/ Research Program Director Lora Alberto, School of Art Program Director of Administration Emily Paolucci, School of Art Executive Staff Assistant Katie Pitocco, and the graphic design support team at DAAP, Morgan Beatty, Aaron Cowan, Robert Probst, and Sophia Tibbs in collaboration with Lyndon Probst.

Also, a special note of thanks to Sara M. Vance Waddell and Michelle Vance Waddell for partial support of the publication of this brochure.

The DAAP Studio Annex is located on the corner of Martin Luther King Drive and Clifton Avenue, 429 Riddle Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221 For details, call 513-556-4933 or visit daap.uc.edu

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Director, School of Art: Kate Bonansinga In mid-January 2020 construction was completed on the College of DAAP Studio Annex and School of Art Master of Fine Art students moved in. This was just a few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic brought activity at the University of Cincinnati, and the world, to an abrupt halt. Now, more than one year later, we open the doors of the Annex for members of our community to experience an exhibition of artwork by graduating Master’s students in the space where the artwork was conceptualized, developed and fabricated. This will be the first of many outward-facing events we host in this building, situated on the edge of campus, but also just a few feet from the DAAP complex, a bridge between the university and its neighborhood.

For the past several years the Contemporary Arts Center has hosted a Spring exhibition for our second year, graduating MFA students as a culmination of two years of intensive study and artistic development. This year it took place in early February and was a group exhibition with graduating MFA students from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The students agreed upon Emerge as a title for that exhibition, indicating new beginnings and promise. Some of the artwork exhibited in the DAAP Studio Annex may be the same as that which was exhibited at Contemporary Arts Center, and some has been created between late February and today, using information and ideas gleaned from that formative exhibition experience.

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Master of Arts in Art Education Director: Flávia Bastos The Master of Arts in Art Education is a boldly designed graduate degree designed to advance professional careers of artists and educators who are committed to democratizing access to high quality arts education in various settings that include schools, museums and galleries, as well as community and cultural organizations.

The curriculum and related experiences promote student engagement with three core aspects of the program: MAKING is foundational in art education research. It is a process that involves conceptualizing ideas, creating meaningful art, designing learning experiences, and establishing transformative relationships.

CONNECTING refers to creating knowledge and establishing strategic partnerships. This process can energize professional practice and have the impact of transforming future art educator careers.

LEADING is the intended outcome of completing this program. Leading with creativity and imagination, our graduates are uniquely prepared to harness the power of art to address current issues and promote change.

Master of Fine Arts Program Director: Mark Harris The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) is a two-year studio program with areas in 2D (painting, drawing, printmaking), 3D (sculpture, ceramic sculpture, installation), and Media (photography, electronic art, video, sound and other new media including performance). Professional excellence is the primary goal of graduate education in the visual arts. Interdisciplinary work is supported but not required; students may change their concentration or bridge multiple concentrations as their work develops. Each discipline has its own space to accommodate material and facility needs.

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Art in the time of COVID And wasn’t Garcia Marquez a best seller last year? This will be the period to tell stories about. As Italians would check out a stranger by asking “what did you do in ’68?”, we will want to know what artists did in 2020, what they made work about, how they made it, where they worked, how they held on.

We should have kept fingers crossed during that auspicious January 2020 relocation into bright new MFA studios on Riddle Road. For a decade the program had been split across as many as three different sites, so the new building felt like a miracle homecoming after a decade in the wilderness. Two-and-a-half months of unsuspecting calm in this beautiful high-ceilinged open space before wham! Spring Break over and our university had vanished into virtual space while graduates had to improvise studios in living rooms, garages, and gardens.

This was the least normal year imaginable for MFAs. After kicking off a regular fall 2019, only 8 months later our cohort became test pilots for remote studio working and teaching (the majority simultaneously taught and studied) when no one really had a clue how to do either. No crashing allowed, no ejection seats, just coming in on a wing and a prayer. But as art cheerleader and visiting artist Pam Kravetz told them of her own practice, our MFAs likewise always landed the plane. They mastered online teaching and made some of the most memorable and moving artwork of any previous UC MFA thesis show.

An MFA is also a network that originates on campus and extends into the local community to engage with galleries, collectors, artists. After all physical contact was disrupted in March we were thankful for the many visiting speakers (listed in this brochure, the majority of them unremunerated) connecting from cities as far afield as Chicago, New York, London, Berlin, Florence, who generously gave their time and conversation and extended the network’s threads to myriad possible artistic futures.

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School of Art Faculty

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Fine Art

Art History

Mirinalini Aggarwal Benjamin Britton Denise Burge Kimberly Burleigh Bain Butcher Amanda Curreri Mark Harris Matt Lynch Lorena Molina Jordan Tate Jenny Ustick Edward Victor-Sanchez Xia Zhang

Kate Bonansinga Mikiko Hirayama Theresa Leininger-Miller Maria Seda-Reeder Lauren Tate Art Education Flavia Bastos Vittoria Daiello Kristopher Holland Katherine Smith

The School of Art thanks all those who from fall 2019 through spring 2021 generously gave their time and experience to our MFA students Jay Bolotin Cal Cullen Guy Michael Davis Mark Dejong Matt Distel Kristine Donnelly Future Farmers Alison Green Nola Hanson Dennis Harrington Lauren Henkin Irene Hoffmann Peter Huttinger and Vicki Mansoor Kahlil Robert Irving Kim Klosterman and Michael Lowe Pam Kravetz Kelly Kroener and Eli Walker George and Linda Kurz Shannon Tamara Lewis Jon Lorenz Latosha Matthews Eli Meiners Matt Morris Sean Mullaney Migiwa Orimo Katie Parker Mark Patsfall Alice Pixley-Young Erwin Redl Sa’dia Rehman Jen Delos Reyes Amy Ritter Sarabel Santos-Negron Joseph Schneider Daniel Shieh Abigail Smithson Andy Stillpass Sara M. Vance Waddell Mohsen Vehsi Bojanga Videkanic Lilly Wei Lindsey Whittle

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Andrea Chemero, MFA

BA, 1994, MLS, Indiana University, 1999 Andrea Chemero’s paintings are a visual investigation of the science of plant communication. Through researching network theory, the pattern and decoration movement, historical botanical drawings, the history of applied drawing, and the works of visionary artists such as Charles Burchfield and Hilma af Klint, she arrived at a visual language to denote trees’ communications with each other. “Now more than ever,” as Felix Guattari states in The Three Ecologies, “nature cannot be separated from culture; in order to comprehend the interactions between ecosystems, the mechanosphere and the social and individual Universes of reference, we must learn to think ‘transversally.’ ” Chemero’s hope is that her work conveys wonderment and heightens appreciation for our natural world in all its complexity. The stained-glass effect achieved with the patterning and color in this work looks cheerful until you notice the lurid yellow stumps in the background. The trees are the majestic cathedrals of the forest because of their shade and shelter, and they are the keepers of the creatures by providing food and oxygen.

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Tree Stump Node, 2020 Watercolor and gouache on Arches 140 lb. cold press paper | 24.5” x 22.5”

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Nickolas Collins, MFA

BFA, Art Academy of Cincinnati, 2014 Jamais Vu, a series by Nickolas Collins, emblematizes the strangeness of face-to-face contact mitigated by technology that so many of us are experiencing daily. By painting digitally corrupted portraits, Collins highlights the ways that personal connection is obscured by the very nature of online communication and exacerbated by an enduring, imposed distance of a pandemic-induced quarantine. Whether in-person or online, we are forgetting how to communicate in an unmitigated way, and it is permanently changing how we interact with each other. This work is a way to reclaim the slowness, intimacy, and physicality stolen by our forced reliance on technology.

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Bravery, Repetition, and Noise, 2021 Acrylic on cradled panel | 48” x 48”

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Todd Gries, MA ARTE

BFA, University of Cincinnati, 2012 As a high school art educator, the focus of my research is to highlight the importance of student empowerment in the classroom for those intraditional and remote learning spaces. Within the context of art education, empowerment means giving students the power they need to be active agents of their own visual learning in an effort to pursue a higher quality of life. In order to promote student empowerment, my high school students are participating in questionnaires, art projects, student-led presentations, and will ultimately curate a virtual art show built entirely of their work. Students will express their own versions of empowerment through participating in individual research, and the creation of a visual artwork and artist statement for the show. This project will highlight the school’s standard of creating a learning-centered culture by cultivating an environment that fosters quality learning for students and staff, and provides pathways to explore and maximize each individual’s character and academic talent. Visual art is a vital subject that cultivates student voice and strengthens their decision-making ability, ultimately leading to a more empowered student and individual.

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Grant King, MA ARTE

BFA, University of Cincinnati, 2017 Throughout my life I have actively engaged with and have been influenced by pop culture. How have certain areas of visual media and art as a whole molded me into the person I am today? I have chosen to explore reflectively via tufting to find what particular elements of content in anime, cartoons, and reading comics have had the most significant impact. Tufting as a media choice relies upon technical competency, material selection, design, aesthetical connection, and execution. As a future art educator, breaking down art making and considering the value of pop culture pedagogy in my work is essential. Sourcing materials and imagery from a time of personal nostalgia has the potential to showcase an emotional response from the viewer. Through this response I hope you too can have a moment of reflection upon what you enjoy from pop culture and how it has affected your perception of others, objects, and yourself.

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Tsubaki, 2021 8 color rug using tufting gun, color acrylic yarn, felt backing on burlap using tufting gun | 32” x 39”

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Kirsten I. Ledbetter, MFA

BFA, BS, Miami University, 2017 These works aim to hold on to ephemeral moments in time. By using graphite drawings that capture shadows as they move across paper, they record the subtle moments of time passing. The installation of translucent silks, in tandem with projections of shadows, attempts to manifest slowness and ephemerality in a physical space that invites viewers to enter an atmosphere created by the multiple iterations of shadows. The numerous renditions of shadows are the artist’s acknowledgment of small, ‘insignificant,’ and fleeting moments. These moments are intended as a compensation for the numbing desensitization felt in a rat-race society and enact a response to existing in contemporary American culture. The work begs the artist and the viewer to slow down. By creating this visually calming environment with the slow process of capturing shadows through drawing, Ledbetter intends to illuminate the inherently flawed structure of a mentally and physically exhausting capitalist society. In spite of each person’s relative insignificance within the larger history of humanity, the motivation here is nevertheless to claim space for the validity of an individual moment.

The work Ledbetter creates is not explicit in its content. Muted tones, subtle graphite drawings, and hazy shadows are the means chosen to depict honest, slow, lived-in moments.

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Ein Moment in Merten mit zwitschernden Vögeln, dem Wind und dem Schatten der Magnolia stellata im Frühjahr. Ein moment in der Sonne. In der Ruhe, 2021 Silk, projection, dowel rods, screw eyes, monofilament | Dimensions variable

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Rachel Linnemann, MFA

BA, Northern Kentucky University, 2012 Through celebratory forms and everyday objects, Rachel Linnemann calls attention to essential roles, as well as stressors of the pandemic. To be called an “essential worker” during a pandemic has been seen as an act of praise. In actuality, these professions are necessary for society to continue to function. This body of work celebrates essential workers, while also pointing out the flaws in how we celebrate them. What consequences do our actions have and what unseen repercussions are we enacting?

Linnemann approaches her work with empathy rather than cynicism in hope of providing a brief source of light in what could be darkness.

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With the Time You Have Left, 2021 Found clocks | 222” x 12” x 222”

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Giulia Palazzo, MA ARTE

BFA, University of Cincinnati, 2019 According to the National Center for Educational Statistics in the fall of 2017, 5 million or 10.1% of public-school students were English language learners (ELL). As an ELL myself I have experienced firsthand how the public school system can be prepared to face this growing number of learners. My project combines art and gamebased learning to address the needs of ELL students. Art is a universal language that can transcend language barriers. Game-based learning is an efficient way to convey knowledge, especially to primary school children. Kalā is an art- and language-based board game to actively engage young students in developing their language skills.

Through the various stages of the game players are challenged to draw, identify, and name everyday life objects. Kalā means art in Nepalese, which is one of the least spoken languages in the United States. This word is an epitome of how we all can find ourselves in front of something puzzling. When the majority of us sees the word Kalā for the first time, the first question that may come to mind is “what does it mean?” which is what ELL find themselves thinking most of the time.

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Josie Love Roebuck, MFA

BFA, University of Georgia, 2019 The summer of 2020 brought chaos upon the world. We were faced with a global pandemic and searching for peace and justice for people of color. The inquisition of Josie Love Roebuck’s heritage came into play during the Black Lives Matter Movement: her identity, experiences, fears, concerns, and what she would like to change were thrown into the spotlight. Roebuck’s process addresses the contemporary complexities of identifying as biracial where symbolizing pain and triumph, exclusion, and acceptance, are achieved by layering of fabrics and patching together portraits.

Roebuck has tried to make herself whole by examining her existence as a biracial person. She confronts the ever-present feeling of being in the wrong skin and of not belonging to a specific racial group, while wondering how one can ever be whole when we live in a society that thrives on racial divide.

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From Deserving to Denial, 2020 Screen print, screen print ink, oil pastel, charcoal, fabric, yarn, and tassels on canvas (rug piece) | 58” x 55” x 1”

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Cody Schriever, MFA

BFA, University of Buffalo, 2017 Cody Schriever’s paintings investigate the subjectivity of individual experience and reflect on the sensation of mortality salience. Each work is based on a collage of photographs taken by the artist at the moment he experiences this abrupt shift in perception. The act of documentation serves as a proclamation of existence, tethering a single moment to a specific place. By translating these images into paintings, the familiar iconography of domestic and urban settings from the artist’s day-to-day life is imbued with a feeling of intangibility and the suggestion of narrative. In this work, there is an effort to capture both the moment of being struck by the sense of one’s mortality and the lingering memory of that experience. In this way, the paintings serve as an exploration into the artist’s inner world, which is directly affected by the uncertain, ever-changing nature of one’s immediate social milieu and the even less familiar larger world beyond.

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On the precipice morning and night, a cold hand on your back, 2021 Oil on canvas | 56” x 72”

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Sara Torgison, MFA

BFA, Humboldt State University, 2010 Our planet is undergoing unprecedented warming, species death, and resource depletion. The human web of global capitalism extends its toxicity, straining society and the ecosystem to new limits. Blending figures and materials, Sara Torgison’s work examines humans and spiders, and the unknown we inhabit together. What can becoming one with spiders teach us about adaptability at the edge? Can we learn new ways of being through explorations of “shadow” lifeways? Shifting Anthropos—the star-gazing namesake of our turbulent epoch—to Arachnopos makes room for new possibilities. Fragile Anthropos has taken all he can from the earth while wishing for the stars. Maybe flexible Arachnopos will draw valuable connections that salvage and repair what remains? Becoming one with spiders directs more eyes on the complexities of a system in peril, with silken weavings to capture responsible solutions for mending a damaged planet. Smoke Signals also calls for help and solutions.

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Smoke Signals, 2020 Ceramic, wool, cassette tape | 35” x 24” x 16”

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