2023 University of Washington MFA + MDes Thesis Exhibition

MAY 27 — JUN 25, 2023

Each year, the Henry presents the University of Washington's School of Art + Art History + Design Master of Fine Arts and Master of Design thesis exhibition. Throughout their programs, fine arts and design students work with advisers and other artists to develop advanced techniques, expand concepts, discuss critical issues, and emerge with a vision and direction for their own work.

The 2023 University of Washington MFA + MDes Thesis Exhibition is organized by Eric Zimmerman, Exhibition Designer and Preparator, and Rachel Ann Kessler, Senior Preparator.

MASTER OF FINE ARTS

James William Blake Master of Fine Art

The absurd has always had the power to capture our attention but in this saturated world, it remains one of our best tools to hook the viewer and inspire thought. My work expresses thoughts on sustainability, the internal conflict between Artist and Maker, and the relative accessibility of interactive works.

Art for Art #5: Coloring book, wraps into one work my adoration for museums and space for comfortable reflection. As with fine furniture, it facilitates visual and physical comfort.

James William Blake, Umbrellas are for Californians, 2021. Wood, aluminum, steel, bulbs, and battery. Courtesy of the artist.

Dana Blume Master of Fine Art

Dana Blume’s work depicts a human adjacent reality where personal and collective human anxieties, hopes, and absurdities are personified through unnameable creatures and awkward bodily forms. Some of his works depict specific narratives that serve as cautionary tales, where these creatures engage in compulsively destructive behaviors that result in comedically tragic outcomes. His hopes are that difficult feelings can live inside an image and prolonged material engagement with those images can lead to a clarity about personal and collective fears. The depictions of these destructive behaviors enacted by the protagonists of his work are never explicitly violent and are in fact quite light hearted, with hopes that if viewers could relate to the plight of these creatures, their hijinks could inspire levity, empathy, and self acceptance. These works serve as a framework to investigate the cultural function of myth making and the monster as a receptacle for societal anxieties. In his more formally driven work, he investigates the connection between painting and paradeolia, our innately human desire and ability to see symbols, patterns, and images in abstract phenomenon. He hopes to convince viewers that images are inherently abstract and that our ability to see images is not dissimilar to our childlike capability of seeing “rabbits in the clouds.”

Dana Blume was born and raised in San Diego, California. He earned his BFA in drawing and painting from California State University of Long Beach in 2019 and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Washington.

Dana Blume, Game Losers: After The Tiger Hunt, 2022. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.

Opposite: Dana Blume, Hard Thinker, 2022. Tempera, acrylic and ink on paper. Below: Imagining a World Without Daisies, 2023. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.

Kayla Cochran, They Smiled, 2023. Mixed media. Courtesy of the artist.

Kayla Cochran Master of Fine Art

This project is an extension of my longstanding interest in visual storytelling through domestic still life. In an attempt to discover these stories, I rely heavily on the practice of collecting and investigating evidence of existence. In search of human paraphernalia that hold some anonymous history, I find artifacts that, together, evoke new narratives and place value in moments and items that were once discarded. This project has developed into a series of interdisciplinary set-ups that collapse expectations of reality and dimensionality. It disorients through uncanny familiarity and illusion, communicating a sense of both nostalgia and anxiety. The work weaves together personal stories of growing up in Massachusetts with those of anonymous figures and fictional characters. There is a human presence that transcends the body and grants subjectivity to inanimate paraphernalia. I encourage viewers to step into this mirror world, reminiscent of a dream, in search of a feeling, an answer, or a memory.

Kayla Cochran is a Massachusetts-born artist currently living and working in Seattle, Washington. She received her BFA in Painting and Drawing from Montserrat College of Art in 2015, where she received both the Montserrat Painting Award and the Montserrat Art Education Award. Since then, she has been teaching middle school, high school, and undergraduate level art courses. She is currently an MFA candidate at University of Washington for 2023.

Left to right: Kayla Cochran, Dorothy (No Toto), 2023. Mixed Media. Untitled, 2023; Untitled, 2023. Silver Gelatin Print. Courtesy of the artist.

Ruby Henrickson Master of Fine Art

Empathy and compassion are generative forces in my practice: in concept, form, process, and the act of creation amidst loss. Lots of the visual vocabulary in my work comes from an interpretation of the body’s senses. The senses are an equalizer: a flower is nourished by the sun, just as a turtle feels the same heat upon its shell, and even the rock this turtle lays on. My senses are united and empathize with the flower, turtle, rock, and sun. I make art for the same reason I visit bodies of water for clarity. The same reason I collect stones, sticks, and feathers. The reason a beaver builds their dam, or a spider their web. The reason, also, does not have to be called by any one name, but I often return to “love.”

Ruby Henrickson is an artist from Michigan living and working in Seattle, WA. She earned her BFA in painting in 2021 at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, and is a 2023 MFA candidate in Painting and Drawing at the University of Washington. She received the 2020 Gordon Art Fellowship at Pierce Cedar Creek Institute for Environmental Studies for research on art and the environment. Recent work comes from interests in posthumanism, environmentalism, phenomenology, and philosophies on love. She strives for her art/life practice to be fluid, forgiving, and regenerative.

Ruby Henrickson, To be like a field, 2023. Mixed media on cardboard. Courtesy of the artist.

Lucas Latimer

Master

of

Fine Art

My body of recent work has explored the use and meaning of ceramic materials unfired, un-petrification. The main historical body of ceramics mostly explores clay that has gone under the proper firing process, allowing the ceramic objects to last millennia. My work uses clay in its unfired, green form. The clay is used by the artist to capture a moment, then once the moment is gone the same clay is broken down and reused again for another moment. The clay lives on ever-changing with its environment, unlike its fired form. Also, acknowledging what has been labeled as prehistoric use of clay that was never fired yet exhibited.

Lucas Latimer (b. 1996, Dallas) studied studio ceramics and art history at the Kansas City Art Institute, and graduated with his BFA in 2019. Lucas is a current second-year graduate student at the University of Washington’s 3D4M program in Seattle with a focus in ceramics. Lucas sculpts clay into bodily forms in the abstract with features altered, malformed, erased, or hidden. His sculptures are the amalgamation of the turmoil, hesitate, fear, and insecurities felt by human consciousness, giving them body in order to receive scrutiny and compassion.

Lucas Latimer, A Shell, 2022. Unfired clay, cinder blocks, ceramic slip dipped egg shells. Courtesy of the artist.

Left to right: Lucas Latimer, Study of Clay Recycling, Recycled clay. 2023; Light Source [detail], 2022. Unfired clay, red bricks, cinder block, ceramic slip dipped egg shells, lamp, porcelain white slip on wall; Courtesy of the artist.

Cypress Quickbear-Stalder

Master of Fine Art

“Waiting is something you get used to when you’re a Native American.” (Bruchac, 170)

This studio centers waiting.

Waiting for the artist.

Waiting for the viewer.

Waiting for the gallery.

Waiting for the future.

Waiting for the past.

Waiting for clemency.

Waiting for the check to come in.

Waiting to see South Dakota again.

Waiting for the print to develop.

Waiting for the performance to start.

Waiting for the theory.

Waiting for the court’s ruling.

Waiting for the pipeline to burst.

Waiting for the rocks to erode.

Waiting for the beginning.

Waiting for the end.

This studio centers waiting.

Cypress Quickbear-Stalder, Blue Lines, 2023. Cyanotype on recycled fabric.

Photo: Anna Mlasowsky, courtesy of the artist.

Cypress Quickbear-Stalder is an artist from Judah, Indiana. They graduated in 2021 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Media from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. They are a 2023 Master of Fine Arts candidate at the University of Washington’s Photo/Media program. Their first solo show debuted at Das Schaufenster in March of 2023.

Cypress QuickbearStalder, Blue Eyes, 2023. Cyanotype on recycled fabric. Photo: Anna Mlasowsky, courtesy of the artist.

Adamska Elizaveta Rakhilkina, Rape [still], 2022. Narrative short. Courtesy of the artist.

Adamska Elizaveta Rakhilkina

Master of Fine Art

A film is a mosaic forged by time. Adamska Elizaveta Rakhilkina’s films exist in the chasm between two empires—the United States and Russia, and their colonial pasts. Tomorrow Was War is a short film that envisions a dystopian police state of Russia to-be while painting a disquieting portrait of a stealth transgender man, Shura, who is drowning in the environment of total surveillance, paranoia and reactive conformity.

An award-winning film director (“Best Film Audience Award” from Reeling: Chicago International Film Festival), Adamska had their films shown internationally across North and South Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Their experimental documentary No Refunds in collaboration with a New York performer Juno has also been screened locally in Seattle at SOIL art gallery. As a photographer, Adamska has exhibited the globe in galleries in Milan, Berlin, London, and New York. Adamska’s work gallops through eras and genres but is always preoccupied with unpacking our notions of eeriness and nostalgia while transforming flesh with moving image and creating worlds of unbridled desire.

Their visuals hurt so bad, but feel so good. Present is pregnant with future. Home is where the haunt is.

Adamska Elizaveta Rakhilkina, New Flesh for the Old Ceremony [still], 2021. Narrative short. Courtesy of the artist.

Jai Sallay-Carrington Master of Fine Art

Jai Sallay-Carrington is a figurative ceramic sculptor creating works about human identities, behaviour, and emotions using anthropomorphic creatures. Reflecting on their queer and nonbinary gender identity, Jai creates sculptures which challenge and analyze the dominant heteronormative and cisgendered society. They question the role that these identities have in forming an individual’s character, personality, and placement within their culture. Jai’s sculptures speak to a feeling of otherness, but not necessarily of physical traits which can be immediately viewed by the public. These identities exist within, they are either shared or kept a secret. The zoomorphic qualities of their sculptures shed light on those human characteristics hidden from the naked eye. As each animal comes with its own unique qualities, as well as the myths and stories associated with them, when anthropomorphized, their addition to the human form creates a deeper understanding of that individual’s personality and experiences.

Jai Sallay-Carrington is a Canadian artist from Vancouver B.C. and Montreal QC. In 2014 they graduated from Concordia University with a BFA in ceramics. Jai has attended several artist residencies in Canada, the U.S., and Europe. They have had several solo exhibitions in recent years, such as NuQueer Power at Fatale Art Gallery and Adapting at Maison de la Culture Côtedes-Neiges. They have been featured in publications such as CBC Exhibitionists and Ceramique: 90 Artistes Contemporarian. Jai has been awarded grants from Canada Council of the Arts, SODEC, and CALQ.

Jai Sallay-Carrington, Visibly Invisible, 2023.

Ceramic, foam, paint. Courtesy of the artist.

MASTER OF DESIGN

Wayne Hongyuan Jiang

Master of Design

Wayne is a multidisciplinary designer passionate about creating fluid user experiences and interactions. Four years at Art Center College of Design drove him to pick up all the foundational design skills needed and create a good relationship with the industry.

While being an Interaction Design graduate student at the University of Washington, Wayne deepened his understanding and extended his practice to explore different forms of information visualization through various interactive prototypes.

As a designer, Wayne believes that design projects should not only live on concepts, as designers are responsible for going one step further to execute the envisioned ideas. Wayne's thesis project, partnering with Meta, adopts the Research through Design (RtD) methodology and explores the opportunity to use Augmented Reality technology to enhance the user experience of data technicians in data centers.

Wayne Jiang, Contextual Information Visualization on AR platforms in Data Center, 2023. Courtesy of the designer.

Chen Wei

Master of Design

Chen is an interdisciplinary designer who specializes in industrial and interaction design. She has always had a strong interest in hands-on problem-solving, which led her to pursue a career in design. After switching majors several times during her undergraduate studies, she finally found her passion at the California College of the Arts, where she started creating intricate physical objects, designing intuitive user experiences, and crafting digital interfaces.

During her time at the University of Washington, Chen had the opportunity to combine her knowledge of industrial and interaction design with psychology, anthropology, and other fields to create more humanistic designs. She also served as a teaching assistant in the School of Art + Art History + Design. For her thesis project, she explored the application of online whiteboard tools in higher design education to optimize the learning experience, efficiency, and outcomes for students with different personalities.

Chen aspires to use her design skills to bring convenience, make contributions, and even change people's lifestyles. As a designer, she firmly believes in the power of thoughtful design to impact people's lives in meaningful ways.

Chen Wei, Mockup Scene, 2023. Chen Wei, Promoting Effective Interaction in Critiques Through Online Tools. Courtesy of the designer.

Claire Florence Weizenegger, Repercussions of Voice Asssistants, 2023. Courtesy of the designer.

Claire Florence Weizenegger Master

of Design

Born in Switzerland as the youngest daughter of a stonemason, I spent most of my time in my father's workshop, where my desire for arts, crafts, and design grew. After finishing the apprenticeship as a Stonemason with honors, I pursued a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Industrial and Product Design. As a Master of Design (MDes) student at the University of Washington, I am passionate about expanding my thinking about the future of technology, society, and how it shapes our sense of being within the frame of our everyday domestic lives. Scholarships from design, philosophy, humanities, and science & technology social studies inform my research. During my twoyear master's program, I have been a Teaching Assistant across several departments at UW.

For my thesis, I focus on Voice Assistants (VAs) and the repercussions of their design and engineering decisions. As other critical scholars observe, Alexa, Siri, and others can exploit or reinforce stereotypical social relations. My work challenges this and reimagines how everyday life with a voice interface in a domestic environment could look.

Awards

2022 Gonzalez Graduate Student Scholarship for Excellence in Design, University of Washington

2022 Ikea Scholarship, Ikea Foundation Switzerland

2021 Top Scholar Award, University of Washington

2021 Fulbright Scholarship, US Department of State

Melanie Wells Master of Design

Melanie is a multidisciplinary designer passionate about creating services, experiences, and interactions. She previously studied at Chapman University in Southern California, where she earned degrees in Graphic Design and Business Administration (Marketing). Prior to graduate school she worked at a sustainable architecture firm, where she helped rebrand the company and spearheaded the firm's environmental graphic design practice.

While an MDes Interaction Design graduate student, Melanie deepened her practice and developed key skills needed to translate human, organizational, and societal needs into more desirable systems, services, and interactions.

As a designer and researcher, Melanie has an optimistic vision for the future. She believes that, at the intersection of design, technology, and people, there is a unique opportunity to make meaningful progress tackling the most challenging human problems that face our world. She is excited and inspired by these challenges, and through her own contribution, hopes to make a lasting positive impact through critical research, responsible practice, and inspired activism. Melanie's thesis project explores the opportunity to enhance the practice of Design for Social Innovation by creating meaningful connections between grassroots projects focused on positive social change.

Awards

2022 Dallas Endowed Fellowship; University of Washington

2021 Top Scholar Award; University of Washington

2016 Purcell Award; Chapman University

2016 Margo Pawell Award; Chapman University

Courtesy of the designer.

CONTACT + COMMITTEE

Contact + Committee Info

Contact blake.james92@gmail.com

(707) 338-6644

jameswilliamblake.com

Committee

Amie McNeel

Michael Swaine

Rob Rhee

Contact danablume12@gmail.com

(760) 828-2158

danablume.com

@danablume760

Committee

Zhi Lin

Ann Gale

Sangram Majumdar

Helen O’toole

Kuldeep Singh

Contact

kaylacochranart@gmail.com

(508) 441-8126

kaylacochran.com

@cochran.kayla

Committee

Ann Gale

Sangram Majumdar

Zhi Lin

Helen O'Toole

James William Blake

Dana Blume

Kayla Cochran

Ruby Hendrickson

Committee

Zhi Lin

(231) 233-0845

rubyhenrickson.com

Helen O'Toole

Sangram Majumdar

Ann Gale

Lucas Latimer

(972) 955-6656

Cypress Quickbear-Stalder

Committee

Amie L. McNell

Michael Swaine

Nate Watson

(206) 928-1538

@heraclitus_theory

Committee

Flint Jamison

Rebecca Cummins

Ellen Garven

Contact + Committee Info

Adamska Elizaveta Rakhilkina

Contact erakhilkina@gmail.com

(512) 850-0630

adamskaelizavetarakhilkina.com

@adamska_utopias

Jai Sallay-Carrington

Contact jscreatures@gmail.com

(514) 944-3404

jscreatures.com

@jscreatures

Wayne Hongyuan Jiang

Contact acchongyuanj@gmail.com

Committee

Ellen Garvens

Rebecca Cummings

Flint Jamison

Committee

Amie Mcneel

Samuel Jernigan

Chandan Reddy

Committee

James Pierce

Audrey Desjardins

Chen Wei

Claire Weizenegger

James Pierce

Audrey Desjardins

Melanie Wells

Jason Germany

Karen Cheng

Jacob Wobbrock