SAIC PRINTMEDIA MFA 2019 MFA PRINTMEDIA EXHIBITION Catalog 2019 EXHIBITION CATALOG
SAIC
2019 MFA EXHIBITION CATALOG Department of Printmedia School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2019 MFA EXHIBITION CATALOG DEPARTMENT OF PRINTMEDIA SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO
GARRETT FEES ROSEMARY HALL JONATHAN KOROTKO LOGAN KRUIDENIER JUAN NEIRA ALESSANDRA NORMAN NEIL O’MALLEY ELISE PARISIAN MONIKA PLIOPLYTE ROBERT SAWYER REBECCA TANDA LIYING ZHANG
GARRETT FEES iG@garrett.fees
flowers no. 22 5 Color Monoprint Lithograph with Drawing and Watercolor 11� x 14� 2018
Born in Virginia in 1988. Lived in Fairfax Virginia until moving to Richmond Virginia in 2006 to attend VCU and receive a BFA in painting and printmaking. Mastered at SAIC. stale kitchen sponge soul relentless vulnerability resting with capital cloned love around the super natural sink Usage and unity with utility Asking tasking touring tolls Splitting topics spitting scrolls Gets held once Dreams every cell to that Historically bitten not fitting Contingency to all the above proclaiming deranging ventricles the authentic fan handed its’ own wind sweat upon this seated medium carry around this opted blooming drowned consuming might upon some wilted stairs care and contusions bruised blunt illusion Optic vaulting forgive consulting on earth as it is heaven exchange rated speaking leash lightly folding all forms built and kitely
love is a panic in a foam covered cave 2 Layer Silkscreen with Dye Transfer and Crayon Transfer on Linen 30” x 40” 2018
lesion lesson 1 indefinite Silkscreen on Hand Dyed Linen 40” x 30” 2019
gut rehab Silkscreen and Oil with Drawing on Raw Canvas 36” x 60” 2019
ROSEMARY HALL rosemaryhollidayhall.com
Rosemary Hall received her BFA from the University of California, Davis in 2013 and her MFA from SAIC in 2019. She lives and works between Los Angeles, CA and Chicago, IL. The world is a knot in motion -Donna Haraway Through a kaleidoscopic and tinkering approach I weave diverse disciplines into bio-geo-alchemical webs, where termites edit a book titled The Universe, and fungal spores notate scores. There is always an element of change and a coming together of randomness into negentropic structure. I investigate time’s invisible force and the relations embedded between space, bodies, and landscapes. Rather than providing answers, I am in search of hybrid, incomplete, and experimental gestures and translations that invite a broader spectrum of interpretation. When the child was a child, It was the time for these questions: Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? When did time begin, and where does space end? Is life under the sun not just a dream? Is what I see and hear and smell not just an illusion of a world before the world? How can it be that I, who I am, didn’t exist before I came to be, and that, someday, I, who I am, will no longer be who I am? -Peter Handke, Song of Childhood
The Predicament of Pressure Clay, Metal, Brick 48”x 96” x 14” 2019
The Predicament of Pressure Clay, Metal, Brick 48”x 96” x 14” 2019
A Silent Space Between You and Me Morse Code Sound, Faux Rock, Rock, Metal 28” x 16” x 14” 2019
The Predicament of Pressure Clay, Metal, Brick 48”x 96” x 14” 2019
JONATHAN KOROTKO jonathankorotko.com
Jonathan Korotko (1992) is an artist working with fiber in sculptural form. Having exhibited across the United States as well as internationally, his work mimics spaces and objects that are traditionally associated with certain gender norms and class, in order to create a new sense of opulence and whimsy. Jonathan has been an artist-in-residence at Ox-Bow School of Art, Franconia Sculpture Park, and The Kala Art Institute.
Within sculpture, I examine the intersections of aesthetics coming from my own familial history and what an empowering queer aesthetic might look like today. As a maker, I think of ways to allow people to connect to a sense of political agency and community through aesthetic form. My understanding of aesthetics and taste are personal. I look to my grandmother, who in her time was an extreme personality. She smoked out of an extender, always had a drink in hand, wore mismatched colors and patterns, and donned feather boas instead of scarves. She helped me understand that dressing and one’s style serves as a very personal way of asserting agency.
Melodramatic They Always Say; How Exactly Am I? Installation Shot- MFA Exhibition at Sullivan Galleries (Chicago) 2019
Melodramatic They Always Say; How Exactly Am I? Grandma’s Curtains (upgraded of course), Yarn, Ostrich Feathers, Marabou Feathers, Beads, Crystal Chains, Pom-Poms, Wood 114” x 60” x 2” 2019
Stallion Inherited Perfume, Liquid (her scent), Glass, Wood, Ostrich Feathers, Sequin, Beads, Cording, Nylon Hair 6” x 4” x 2”
LOGAN KRUIDENIER logankruidenier.com
Hello! My name is Logan. I am from Goleta, a small and sunny town in California. I am a multimedia artist, but drawing is my favorite. I also make music. Places I have exhibited include New York, Chicago, Toronto and Germany. I currently live in Chicago. I enjoy bagels with peanut butter. I consider myself an artist of sequences, whose creative investigation illuminates cycles of self/selves in rendered, real and abstract narratives, often inspired by the conflict between the magical world of video games and the causal horror of domestic life. Expanding arrays of strategies for these representations continue to evolve in my work in ways both mysterious and familiar, their source an equally expanding sense of connotation and implication I am finding in the concept of masking. Is the mask a false disguise, or is it another layer in a stack of differing masks, each playing an important role or representing important degrees in the rendering of difference? Furthermore, what happens when these layered differences translate themselves into different media, further contrasting their singular uncanny natures while simultaneously blurring boundary between mask and wearer? I am most interested in this blurred space, as it vibrates between modes of construction and collapse; a constant death and rebirth of identity/ies.
Fur-Tree Faux Fur, Canvas, Thread, Wire, DuckTape, Cloth 18� x 10.8� 2019
Fruit Multi-Layer Risograph Print, Nails, Acrylic Paint, Hole 11” x 17” 2019
Steaks Blankets, Canvas, Shower Curtain, Thread, Teddy Bear Stuffing, Baseball Hat 48” x 27.6” x 6”
JUAN NEIRA NeiraJuan.com
No Memorials for the Martyrs Concrete Finisher and Fabrics 42� x 25� 2018
Juan Neira received his MFA from SAIC in 2019. He lives and works in Chicago, IL.
The overwhelming weight that one experiences while being in a state of emptiness is contradictory. How can one feel completely overwhelmed while existing in the rawness of desolation? The journey of deciphering emptiness as human experience has left me with the ungraspable obscurity of its identity; a condition that we all share yet cannot concretely articulate. I create bodies that demand attention, bodies that seduce the viewer into seeing them as artifacts of the concealed. Opulent and tragic monuments that commemorate what we cannot express with words. Testaments to the complexity of comprehending what it means to mean anything at all.
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Because I Lack The Very Language To Articulate This Weight Concrete Finisher and Fabrics 96” x 48” each 2019
Verse ~~~~ Concrete Finisher and Fabrics 15” x 15” 2018
Patch Me Treated Fabrics 60” x 45” 2018
Verse#!@$! Concrete Finisher and Fabrics 15” x 15” 2018
ALESSANDRA NORMAN alessandranorman.com
B. 1990 El Paso, Texas
My practice is an exploration of perception through physical perceptual play. Pinging between the semiotic and the perceptual, I use materials as vehicles to explore the overlaps and the gaps between the two modes of meaning-making. I construct disorienting situations through a playful conflation of different modes of image making—representation, reproduction, reflection, replication— in which the resulting confusion is meant to encourage a state of heightened awareness, where means and faculties of perception must be questioned. By presenting an assortment of signs, symbols, mirrors, multiples, and more, viewers are left to sift through the sampling to interrogate their ideas surrounding the actual and the authentic, the pseudo and the simulated.
Untitled (installation view, left of the fire hose) Stud Pine, Drywall, Primer, Latex Paint, Plywood, Mirrors, Steel Grilles 118” x 89” 2019
(Untitled) MDF, Poplar, Primer, Spray Enamel, Upholstery Fabric, Hinges, White Bread, American Cheese, Ham 54” x 34” x 21” 2018
I Wanna Go Pro Home Depot Bucket Lid, 7-11 Ping Pong Balls, Mirror, Acrylic, Spray Enamel 15” x 15” x 3” 2018
NEIL O’MALLEY neilpatrickomalley.dreamwidth.org
let me be your best boy, detail Cardboard Cut-Outs, iphones, Mirror Installation, Size Variable 2019
Neil Patrick O’Malley was born and raised in Metro-Detroit, Michigan and received a BFA in Printmaking from Pratt Institute and an MFA in Printmedia from SAIC. Neil Patrick O’Malley spends the majority of his time at home. For the home is the safe space in which we imagine the possibilities of our lives and our crushes. Where we obsess, fantasize, and desire uncontrollably. Using an at-home-aesthetic he wants to share all of these things that we typically hide within the home from the prying eyes of others.
let me be your best boy, detail Cardboard Cut-Outs, iphones, Mirror Installation, Size Variable 2019
untitled Paint markers and Post-it Note 25”x 30” 2018
untitled Paint markers and Post-it Note 25”x 30” 2018
untitled Paint markers and Post-it Note 25”x 30” 2018
ELISE PARISIAN EliseParisian.com
“One Time This Thing Happened…”, Cyanotype on Muslin, Chiffon Dimensions Variable 2019
Elise Parisian is a multimedia artist who received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute in 2019. She lives and works in Chicago, IL.
Ghosts are all around us; both in the literal sense of an embodied spirit and the ways in which people, memories, and experiences can be haunting - regardless of corporeal boundaries. My practice is currently focused on making spaces for connection and storytelling as it relates to both the ghosts you celebrate and the ones you wish you could leave behind.
A Hint Cyanotype on Stonehenge 18”x 24” 2019
One Time This Thing Happened… (Interior detail) Cyanotype on Muslin, Chiffon Dimensions Variable 2019
MONIKA PLIOPLYTE Monikaplioplyte.com
The Lull; The Peaks are Mine Mixed Media Detail - (120” x 72” x 48”) 2019
Born in Lithuania, Plioplyte currently lives and works in Chicago, IL. She received her BFA in printmaking from MassArt in 2012 and her MFA in PrintMedia from SAIC. Thinking about the body as the paradox of contained and container at once, Plioplyte focuses on capturing the boundaries of the body as object and the limits of its physical extension into space. In her practice she explores and breaks down the boundaries of human experience, however anxious or unsettling, it is a permanent state of transition. Rooted in feminist ideas and tensions between the experiences of pleasure and pain, Plioplyte deconstructs and reinvents the body
The Lull; The Peaks are Mine Mixed Media 120” x 192” x 72” (dimensions vary) 2019
Convergence Performance Still 2018
ROBERT SAWYER Robertsawyerdesign.com Robby-sawyer.com
Robert Sawyer is an Artist, Graphic Designer, and Digital Fabricator. His interests span from traditional printmaking to apparel/footwear design. He lives in Chicago and has gallery representation in several states in the continental US and internationally in Wellington, New Zealand. Using the spirit of printmaking, I examine the distinctions between ritual and habit through an exploration of how marks are made. When thinking about the repetitious expression, “practice makes perfect,” a few of my own habits become more evident. As such, I have tried to reimagine new ways of cataloging my life experiences. Through creating works of art aimed at the capacities of journalism, memory, and play, I seek to expose my own relationship to success, failure, and reward as well as offer an apology to my complicity in some of the injustices of modernism .* * Inauthenticity and over-consumption
Strat·a·gem Mixed Media and 3D-Print 8”x 39” 2018
From There to Here, From Here to There Mulberry, Kozo, Cotton Rag Sewn Paper, Time Installation 2019…Day 1, Day 2, Day 3…
Two Weeks of Walks Pen & Ink 12”x 24” 2019
REBECCA TANDA rebecca-tanda.com
Rebecca Tanda (b. 1994) is a visual artist and cartographer currently based in Chicago. Exhibited regionally and internationally, Rebecca’s work considers place, power and mythology through a materially driven sculptural practice. Rebecca was an artist in residence at Franconia Sculpture Park in 2018 and will be in residence the Fondation Fiminco in 2020-2021. Looking at animal heraldry and other animal iconography used by countries and territories lends us a powerful lens through which to investigate founding myths, absence, extinction and colonialism. In these material transformations I am thinking of these animals as co-habitants in geospatial and cultural processes. Throughout history people have likened themselves to animals and this still persists today in the graphics and iconographies of countries, families, and even subcultures and cults. Paradoxically, the ranges of wild animals do not yield to human borders or lands claims, and often are at their detriment as borders and militarized zones cut into habitats and ecosystems and in so doing, harm the beasts whose image they glorify.
Thesis Installation Shot 96� x 120� 2019
Couchant Silicone, Glass, Wire, Paper, Clay 72” x 1.5” x 24” 2019
Statant Silicone, Glass, Plaster, Paper, Bronze, Urethane Rubber 54” x 25” x 84” 2019
LIYING ZHANG liyingzhang.com/ IG: liying_zhang1993
Liying Zhang is an artist who was born and raised in Beijing, China, now living and working in Chicago and New York, United States. She earned her BFA degree from Beijing University of Technology in 2015. In the same year, she transferred to New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and got her second BFA degree in 2017. Liying earned MFA degree at School of the Art institute of Chicago in 2019. My art practice mainly involves ceramics, printmedia, and fiber. While my prior works were based on childhood experiences; Shelter is the latest series of works in my art practice where I have created a surrealistic refuge in my imagination that helps me alleviate my insecurities and anxieties. My art addresses the confrontation between my past and a self-aware present. I use found objects to create an imaginary world based on memory and imagination. To me ceramics is a magical material that allows me to create the ideal 3D form based on my drawings. My work, while personal, addresses universal emotions. I want it to provide a connection that everyone can relate to in their everyday life in one-way or another.
Shelter #2 Ceramics, Yarn 27” x 21” x 15” 2018
Shelter #4 Ceramics, Wire, Gold Leaf 50” x 25” x 25” 2019
Shelter #3 (detail) Ceramics, Gold Leaf 23”x 15”x 11” 2019
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Cover designed by Cy Yoon MFA Visual Communication Design School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2020
About the School of the Art Institute of Chicago For more than 150 years, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) has been a leader in educating the world’s most influential artists, designers, and scholars. Located in downtown Chicago with a fine arts graduate program consistently ranking among the top programs in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, SAIC provides an interdisciplinary approach to art and design as well as world-class resources, including the Art Institute of Chicago museum, on-campus galleries, and state-of-the-art facilities. SAIC’s undergraduate, graduate, and post-baccalaureate students have the freedom to take risks and create the bold ideas that transform Chicago and the world—as seen through notable alumni and faculty such as Michelle Grabner, David Sedaris, Elizabeth Murray, Richard Hunt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Cynthia Rowley, Nick Cave, Jeff Koons, Chris Ware and LeRoy Neiman. FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT SAIC.EDU