MCAD MFA Thesis Exhibition Catalog Spring 2023

MFA Thesis Publication

2023

LOCATION MFA Studios and Gallery 2201 1st Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55404 mcad.edu/mfa All artists and their corresponding artwork published in this book are copyrighted materials.

All rights reserved. © 2023 Minneapolis College of Art and Design

MCAD’s Master of Fine Arts in Visual Studies Program is a community of makers, thinkers, researchers, and creative professionals working in a mentorbased, interdisciplinary environment. The work of the twenty-two artists and designers featured in this catalog represents the culmination of two years of rigorous studio practice, individual mentorship, research, critical thinking, intense discourse, and exploration.

CREDITS Sarah Petersen Director, Master of Fine Arts in Visual Studies Kiley Van Note Assistant to the Director, Master of Fine Arts in Visual Studies Ash Nichols ‘22 Student Designer, DesignWorks Jesús Li Graduate Assistant Designer

MFA GRADUATE FACULTY COMMITTEE Ziba Rajabi Visiting Artist, Master of Fine Arts in Visual Studies Robert Algeo, MFA ‘11 Associate Professor, Design George Hoagland Associate Professor, Liberal Arts Rik Sferra Professor, Media Arts

LAUREN NICOLE ALFARO NÚÑEZ 6 ERIC BUTLER 8 NICK CHATFIELD-TAYLOR 10 SHILUN CHEN 12 KARA FAYE GREGORY 14 YIFEI HE 16 KAY HEINO 18 LOKHO KOTILE 20 JESÚS LI 22 TIANXIN LI 24 YUANRONG (JOY) LI 26 ANNA LYLE 28 MAC 30 ROSARIO PARKER GORDON 32 YIMIN PI 34 AMANDA ROSE 36 ALEXIS SCHRAMEL 38 ABE SHRINER 40 EMMY E SMITH 42 ANGELA ST. VRAIN 44 ALI YAGER 46 IVONNE YÁÑEZ 48

MFA Thesis 2023

LAUREN NICOLE behance.net/laurenalfaroarte

Ever since I was a kid, I have been drawing as a way of documentation and exploration. Over time, I have developed my pictographic language – a code that transforms the silhouette of everything around me and a tool I use to narrate stories just like written language. My pictographs compose semi-abstract and highly detailed imagery.

I have been a migrant for eight years now, and my experience as such extensively informs my current work. Beyond documentation, my pictographs are also acting as a threshold between ways of expression under my bicultural context. This way of making provides me with a brief rest from translation and stress over forgetting my Spanish.

My installations are a direct response to my lone immersion in an unknown culture and my constant confrontation of emotions as they overwhelmingly inundate my body, especially since distance was factored in when I left home.

In my most recent work, I reflect on a shift in perspective and attention due to a newly discovered health condition. With pain and care dictating my capabilities, I am navigating creative adaptation, rest, and silence in my process.

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This body of work is netting together these narrative threads that contain my life. Esto es presencia a distancia.

INSTALLATION INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT, PAPER, BOOK

ERIC BUTLER ericdbutler.com

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I adopt making movies to self-reflect and give myself a space to think more thoroughly. As a process of making, I use the moving image that is paired with the process of thinking through the subject with which I work. Furthermore, I use the moving image as a digital object to serve as an excised temporal bookmark of myself. Despite increased direct self-reflection, I create work that simultaneously encapsulates and expands beyond the personal realm/experience. I have been incorporating more color, domestic spaces, and slow cinema to explore matters of living life rather than abstract concepts. I do not purport to know or increase understanding, but rather, I create one more piece of the never-ending puzzle that is our shared perception. I have been told that I disregard myself. I guess I would not know.

FILM/VIDEO

NICK CHATFIELD-TAYLOR nicholaschatfield-taylor.com

Simple, obdurate scenes of harmonized confusion. Constant, yet continually unique. A one liner in three acts. An infinite game played for the purpose of continuing the play. Always falling, always making a sound, whoever may or may not be around.

This is the second act. There is a stillness in motion, and palpability without tangibility. A surface absorbs and repels.

Remnants conjure and retell loops of chance and randomness.

Sinusoidal gestures fabricate a crispy silence.

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Act one. A serious lightheartedness. A sensorial monomania.

A search for means to define space as both emotionally monumental and physically intimate. The introduction, crisis, and resolution occur simultaneously. You ride the chairlift into the cycle of repose and caper.

INSTALLATION PHOTOGRAPHY SCULPTURE VIDEO/FILM

SHILUN CHEN shilunchen.com

As a multimedia artist and designer, I thrive on the power of illustration and graphic design to communicate complex ideas in visually striking and thought-provoking ways. My work is all about the interplay between color, composition, and storytelling, and I use these elements to create unique and captivating pieces that leave a lasting impression.

My passion lies in exploring the intersection between technology, culture, and life with art. I am fascinated by how advancements in technology can be harnessed to create innovative and interactive designs that engage and captivate audiences, delivering immersive experiences that leave a lasting impact.

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My artistic vision is all about challenging traditional ideas and pushing boundaries, while also creating work that is accessible and meaningful to a wide audience. I am constantly experimenting with new techniques and mediums, pushing myself to explore new ways of bringing my ideas to life. Through my art, I hope to inspire others to see the world in a new light and to appreciate the beauty and complexity of the world around us.

ILLUSTRATION DIGITAL DESIGN

KARA FAYE GREGORY karafayegregory.com

As an installation artist and printmaker, I employ woodcut, monotype, and screenprint in combination with sound, animation, and projection art to create immersive environments for my work to inhabit. Through my studio practice, I process grief and explore my family history. In the past few years, I have had different relationships with grief, and I no longer believe it to be exclusive to pain. My grief at times has been comforting and beautiful, a reflection of the important relationship now gone, and a realization that my memories of that person are fragile and can be manipulated by time.

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Inspired by artists within the Spiritualism movement and my research around Neolithic funerary practices from my Irish history, my installation utilizes light, reflection, and scale to ambiguously capture my research and relationship with grief. I start with a woodcut print, project the white lines from that print onto reflective mylar, photograph the reflections, and use those photographs as a base layer for large-scale monotypes. Each step of the process is a distortion of the last, and I do not view these steps as individual works, but instead select parts of a whole. To provide my viewer with the essential tools to associate their own experiences with my work, I create a level of ambiguity using artifacts in the installation environment.

PRINTMAKING INSTALLATION

YIFEI HE yhe404.wixsite.com/eveho

Sometimes, we repress emotions that make us uncomfortable such as sadness, fear, and judgment. Our tendency to forget is a defense mechanism that arises from the complexity of life and our perceived vulnerability. However, what if we could be reminded of these emotions in a fun and engaging way? As an illustrator and storyteller, this is the fundamental motivation behind my work. I strive to use cartoons and illustrations to help people remember forgotten parts of their memories and inspire them to think again.

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My work is predominantly inspired by social issues and personal experiences. I aim to use forms of storytelling and audience interaction to convey critical messages. For instance, in my comic The Movie Night, I use bullet holes on the pages to symbolize the normalization of gun violence in America, a significant social issue that demands attention. In my children’s picture books, I talk about stereotypes for children that are about trust, and for society that are about prejudice and raising awareness. Illustration possesses a powerful ability to influence society, and I am dedicated to utilizing it to its full potential.

I believe that illustration can help and influence society by enabling us to reestablish our relationship with people. My goal is to maintain a relationship with people through my work and inspire positive change in society.

ILLUSTRATION

KAY HEINO heynoart.com

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I am a research-based, activist artist. I create work using a vast array of methods, including digital design, photography, bookmaking, painting, performance, and installation.

My work is centered around issues of pollution, justice system reform, and human rights. Through the idea of free for the public, I make art pieces that are intended to be seen by everyone, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, or social class. Drawn from collected data, history, and community insights, I make educative and informative art, and I want my audience to feel included in this experience; therefore, I present my work in a manner that is accessible, approachable, and conducive to easy distribution.

MIXED MEDIA

LOKHO KOTILE lokhokotile.com

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Where do we belong? What places define our inner beings and souls? I am still searching for a home. To All the Places I Call Home is an intimate look at my connection to all the different spaces I call home and an exploration of being away, yet present within ourselves. Where do I belong? How can I be current with the ever-changes in life? It’s been two years since I left home.

So many spaces that I have had to define. I am experiencing my own inner thoughts and feelings about space through poetry.

How can I belong anywhere I go? It’s not about the spaces, but rather the different versions of ourselves. To All the Places I Call Home explores the meaning of place and belonging through film and animation.

FILM/VIDEO INTERDISCIPLINARY PHOTOGRAPHY

JESÚS LI jesusli.com

Graphic designers are unlikely to create work driven by personal expression.

However, as a designer, I aim to provoke emotions through visual communication in order to recognize the importance of engaging with the audience on a human level, creating meaningful connections, and leaving a lasting impact on the viewer.

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My designs aim to produce dialogues between the pieces and the audience.

Through using the anthropological foundations of Latino multiculturalism, I create relationships between the verbal and visual fields in order to pursue conversations around understanding how difference is the essence of our identity.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

TIANXIN LI behance.net/TianxinArt

As an artist who creates “monsters,” I use my imagination to depict unknown worlds and encourage my audience to embrace diversity.

My monster creations transcend any medium; they are depicted on canvas, transformed into risographs, and featured in calendars.

Each monster has unique characteristics that reflect its personality and quirks.

My passion for monsters began during my undergraduate years when I created my first series of monster illustrations using my iPad. Later, during my MFA, I experimented with large canvases and acrylic paints, exploring high-contrast pigments and various materials. My most recent project, “Monster Society,” was painted on plexiglass sheets, allowing for layering and interesting picture textures.

Through my work, I encourage my audience to reflect on how monsters differ through their varied characteristics, leading them to accept people who are different from themselves. Monsters are like people with different experiences, personalities, and identities.

By making them cute and comical, they become relatable, and the audience can see themselves or their friends in them.

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Overall, my monsters represent individual differences and serve as a reminder that it’s okay to be different. Through my art, I hope to break down barriers and encourage a more inclusive and accepting society.

ILLUSTRATION INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE

YUANRONG (JOY) LI yuanrongli.com

For me, art-making is a source of peace, comfort, and pleasure that allows me to delve into an endless ocean of creativity. Within my installations, a recurring theme is the connection between lines, shapes, and colors, which creates an infinite number of relationships.

These connections are essential to the vitality of my artwork, much like the connections between people.

Serendipity, spontaneity, and the flow of life play a significant role in my art-making process. I often collect found materials and repurpose them, allowing them to shape the structure and materiality of my work.

This approach to art allows me to create unique pieces that reflect my own experiences and emotions.

I encourage those who interact with my work to focus on their feelings rather than their thoughts. I want my installations to be an immersive experience that allows visitors to map their personal experiences and memories onto the artwork. Through the combination of two and three dimensions and the interweaving of different-sized canvases, visitors can explore the interconnectedness of all things.

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Overall, my art-making process is a reflection of my experiences and emotions, and an exploration of the interconnectedness of all things.

INSTALLATION PAINTING SCULPTURE

ANNA LYLE annalyle.com

Through my painting and 2D mixed-media work, I explore the physical, psychological, and social context of my body, how both I and others perceive my body, and, eventually, how I perceive others in their perceptions of me. This thought process is rooted in larger external systems, such as sexism and hyper-religiosity, and how they affect our perceptions of our bodies. My conceptual inspiration draws on my place and purpose in the world outside of my experiences and memories in the Southern Baptist Christian religion in which I grew up, and in the years since leaving.

My attention to detail and the overall compositions in my work are sourced from my bodily hyper-fixations and the ways in which I feel the inner workings of my body perform. My compositional choices ride the fine line between comfort and discomfort, using fabric as a metaphor for human anatomy, inside and out.

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I work with both figurative and spatial perceptions, creating ambiguity and tension between the various elements in each painting. While the compositions themselves may not read as humorous to some, I see the absurd and bizarre nature of how my work exhibits the body. The complexity and range of emotions in my work are all critical to how I approach my studio practice as a full-blooded person.

PAINTING / DRAWING

MAC hexaween13.weebly.com

I am an interdisciplinary artist who uses nostalgia and escapism as the overarching themes in my work. Using these themes allows me the freedom to express a particular type of visual kitsch language, similar to the illustrations and cartoons I was exposed to as a kid. This enables me a safe space to process, explain, and tell the stories of difficult narratives, providing a warm place to grow and escape for me as well as for the viewers of my work.

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I am constantly chasing that innocent mindfulness that comes with being a kid when processing life. I grew up too fast from the world of make believe, and I am desperately trying to relearn how to play.

PAINTING SCULPTURE

ROSARIO PARKER GORDON rosarioparkergordon.com

As a mixed-media artist with a background in zine making, I am drawn to objects that are conventionally associated with regional masculine activities in the North American Midwest.

Aspects of these “men’s” hobbies, such as making fishing lures, woodwork, and taxidermy, require a level of craft and attention to detail that, removed from their culturally specific context, would otherwise be coded as feminine. This creates friction between the perceived gendering of these mancrafts – masculine within feminine, feminine within masculine; the boundaries are blurred.

I find objects that address this gendering, such as hand tools, duck decoys, and garage ephemera, then replicate them using accessible, affordable materials: printer paper, newsprint, and cardboard. Sculptures and zines perform in quotidian and parodic modes that mimic the materials used to make them.

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How many details are required for the objects to become suitable stand-ins for their real-life counterparts? The materiality of paper mache contains the answer, allowing a continual investigation into exactly which details must be added or discarded. These sculptural replicas become versions of themselves performing Object Drag, wearing their objecthood as a parallel to the performance of gender that they reference.

MIXED MEDIA

YIMIN PI yiminpi.com

Small things matter. The accumulation of small moments significantly impacts our mental health in the long run. As an artist, I am fascinated by the emotions tied to the small things that we tend to ignore when we are busy with our daily lives. I create my artwork with the intention of motivating my audience to perceive the subtle feelings from the small things that they are often unaware of.

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Through illustration and UX/UI design, I bring my creative concept to life. To make my audience stop and reflect on the small moments, I experiment with different mediums to create works that are not only visually intriguing but also interactive and thought-provoking. I want to create art that invites my audience to engage with it, gain a deeper understanding of their emotional needs, and develop a practice of appreciation for the small things in their lives.

ILLUSTRATION

AMANDA ROSE amandaroseartist.com

I am a visual artist from St. Paul, Minnesota. I am interested in exploring issues related to cultural identity and representation.

My work is typically displayed at community events, in galleries, and on the internet. This project focuses on the role of food as a means of sharing cultural recipes and family traditions.

I have created Generously Spiced, a cookbook that shares cherished family recipes with readers. Food is one of the most important ways that we show love for one another. I collected recipes from friends and their family members, and some of my own family’s recipes. Each recipe is accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations and a portrait of the contributor.

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Portraiture is central to my practice due to my desire to share people’s stories and their unique backgrounds. I use intricate details to capture the likeness of each individual. I work in drawing and painting because these mediums allow me to experiment with contrast and a variety of color palettes. Each piece is created with love and care, and my goal is to honor each person. In the future, I plan to further develop my practice through research, teaching, and volunteering in the community.

DRAWING / PAINTING ILLUSTRATION SOCIAL PRACTICE

ALEXIS SCHRAMEL alexisschramel.com

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I am a queer bioartist, and my work revolves around combining social practice, installation, and living organisms. My art practice explores interspecies relationships, ethics, and the social impacts of bodily boundaries. My art requires continuous interaction between me and the environment, the environment and the material, the material and the audience, and me and the audience. Naturally, my practice is rooted in labor, play, care, process, collaboration, and constructed ecosystems. The output of my studio consists of sitespecific, living sculptures based on human and nonanimalia kingdoms, such as bacteria. Most recently, I have been working with SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) to challenge materials, processes, and colonial systems in light of the Anthropocene by designing for more-than-human futures. I approach my practice through gift-giving systems of reciprocity interwoven in human and non-human relationships. My studio/lab investigates duration, organisms, and systems of relationships that emerge from entanglement.

DRAWING / PAINTING ENGAGED & PUBLIC ARTS / SOCIAL PRACTICE INSTALLATION INTERDISCIPLINARY

ABE SHRINER abeshriner.com

Driven by an interest in history, language, and the emancipatory potential of art making, my work has expanded into parallel practices of painting, sculpture, writing and music. My art critiques institutional modes of presentation through playful irony and abstraction of familiar forms, specifically those associated with capitalism and Christianity. I reference antiquated educational idioms, such as the classroom wall map and the natural history diorama, omitting the text normally associated with these didactic forms. These, along with other modified readymades, present as pre-digital artifacts of banal functionality. They feature buttons, keys, and telephones that can be manipulated, but ultimately deny any ability for true interaction—mimicking how authoritarian institutions impose arbitrary values and constructs upon society, disguising them as immutable truths. The painted imagery, by contrast, engages with questions of the sublime and speaks to art as being a force of creative liberation, something that has the power to transcend these constructs.

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With these institutional undertones imbued into my work, I present a mélange of objects that are both familiar and unusual.

Through questioning past and existing systems of authority, I am also, by extension, asking if contemporary institutions are truly compatible with the goals of a democratic society.

DRAWING / PAINTING INTERDISCIPLINARY

EMMY E SMITH emmyesmith.com

inkwell as preconceptual, preverbal it’s like being asleep The drawings are always in situ: a drawing covering an entire wall/drawings spilling down onto the floor, a channel built into a room, the floor newly polished. A rope and a rock. A garden stake.

Repositioned, the vibrations of manufactured objects and objects of blue collar labor and objects more votive act on one another making eddies/ amplifying, muffling, combining latent emanations.

Objects charged with situational residue, powering what /incomplete, vibrational.

Psychological forces drive the imagery like a planetary force made animal, deep disruptions that are modified as they surface through the ink. Heart: the erotic, wildfires, and extinction. Work: sacred > profane > sacred and its inverse, and now without the binary. The intent of the sculptural and installation processes is to provide these deep currents a habitat where they can resonate.

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Presences recorded (drawing a seismic process)/fostered, (drawing a somatic process)/drawing down wire/drawing [a carriage]/the line is a rope I hold and the animal roams on the other end to keep this chasm open, but to define a little, to try to honor what I see.

DRAWING / PAINTING INTERDISCIPLINARY

ANGELA ST. VRAIN angelastvrain.com

Common spaces in apartment buildings are breeding grounds for awkward encounters with neighbors, as we reluctantly greet and narrowly squeeze past each other while dodging swinging doors.

Living in an apartment only provides residents with semi-privacy in both the individual unit and in the shared transitional areas.

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Representations of architectural close calls – like a door in a stairwell swinging open just an inch away from the stair railing – underline the tensions that are a result of living in close proximity to total strangers. I re-create spaces from my own apartment building at scale using home-improvement materials such as beige paint and linoleum floor tiles, representing a landlord’s cheap renovations. Highlighting the absurdities of this interior architecture, I am making light of the often uncomfortable, dangerous, dramatic, and sometimes comical nature of living in multi-unit housing.

INSTALLATION SCULPTURE

ALI YAGER aliyagerart.com

I am inspired by sublime experiences in nature, travel, and art.

Spending time submerged in the endlessness of the stars on a clear night, experiencing the beauty of a new landscape on a long road trip, a lazy day at the ocean, or visiting artifacts of spirituality all influence the way I contemplate ideas of the self. In these moments, I often contemplate my own insignificance and the serenity that can be found within it.

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I strive to occupy this liminal space through my own labor in my drawing and installation practice. Repetition and persistence through time is integral to this practice. I set limiting conditions in my work where the grid, scale or the limits of material are guidelines for accumulating marks and color into an expanding field. Limiting conditions in my personal life also influence the work I make; as a parent, I often make work that can be easily transported from my studio to my dining room table. This mobility allows me to continue to make progress in my work even if I am needed at home. Adapting to the circumstances of being a parent while also prioritizing art making is integral to the work that I make.

DRAWING / PAINTING ENGAGED & PUBLIC ARTS / SOCIAL PRACTICE INSTALLATION

IVONNE YÁÑEZ behance.net/ivonneyanez_manthra

I’m an interdisciplinary artist originally from Mexico City working between soft sculpture, installation, illustration, and painting who utilizes dreams as a medium to represent an ephemeral view of reality.

I explore the subjects of dreams and surrealism via different mediums, ranging from watercolor painting to installation art and soft sculpture. I’ve found it compelling how my paintings inform my sculptures and vice versa; recently I have been interested in producing pieces that create a common thread between the content of my paintings and the texture of the material in my sculptures. I combine my past training as a fashion designer with sculpture due to the three-dimensionality of the human shape and the fine art process.

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In my practice I amplify the disproportion that could be experienced while dreaming, blending memories and traditional objects that belong to the traditional Mexican culture such as the Milagros and Floreros de Tlaquepaque. I take references from dreams and superstitions I have heard since I was a kid. Moreover, my work has taken on an introspective and emotional charge. It engages themes like memory and archival imagery in atemporal moments when the present meets the past to be situated in the same story.

DRAWING / PAINTING INTERDISCIPLINARY INSTALLATION

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