SIUE MFA CATALOG 2023

PARALLEL THOUGHTS

Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition

April 28 – May 31, 2023

Monday – Friday, 9 am – 4 pm

Art and Design West Gallery

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to Art & Design faculty and staff:

Aimee Clinger – Metalsmithing

Ivy Cooper – Art History

John DenHouter – Drawing and Painting

Brigham Dimick – Department Chair, Drawing and Painting

Thad Duhigg – Sculpture

Jayashree George – Art Therapy

Shelly Goebl-Parker – Art Therapy

Abbey Hepner – Photography/Digital Arts

Ryan Hovarth – Printmaking

Dan Holder – Art History

Jeremy Lampe – Glass

Barbara JK Nwacha – Graphic Design

Joseph Page – Ceramics

Sangsook Park – Art Education

Katie Poole-Jones – Art History

Megan Robb – Art Therapy

Marshall Sharpe – Painting

Laura Strand – Textiles

Michael Stumbras – Ceramics

Steve Vick – Glass

Rodrick Whetstone – Graphic Design

Stacey Bell – Administrative Assistant

Leah Power – Head Office Administrator

Thank you to Natcha Wongchanglaw for the catalog design.

INTRODUCTION

Quite surprisingly, I find myself in the position of being one of the most senior members of SIUE’s Department of Art and Design’s faculty. (Where did 27 years go?) But my tenure has afforded me a great deal of historical perspective. For instance, I’ve seen that the MFA program at SIUE proves time and again that accidents can be fruitful and synchronicity is real. Each year, the Department graduates a group of MFA students who came to the program three years earlier, not knowing one another, finding themselves in an arbitrarily composed cohort that grows together to form a distinct community. The culminating creative and academic experience for our graduate students, the MFA thesis show, manifests the myriad ways these artists have learned from and worked with one another to produce an exhibition that is astoundingly cohesive and anything but arbitrary.

The four artists exhibiting in “Parallel Thoughts”—Rachel McConnell, Evan Smith, Nkosi Wan, and Debi Worley—invite you to engage in their work and appreciate the power of their found community. Debi Worley’s works express abstract biographical narratives, and produce corollaries of bodily experience in glass and clay that remind us of the fragility of our emotional investments. Rachel McConnell follows the mantra of Jasper Johns, who encouraged artists to “take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it.” Through intuition and response to form and material, she finds a delicate balance between science and poetry, logic and chaos. Nkosi Wan is the lone artist in the group working figuratively, imbuing his subjects’ skin with a magical realist glow. His figures remind us of the simultaneous strength and vulnerability of the human body, as well as the cost of making conclusions based on appearances. Evan Smith’s sculptures are both humorous and elegiac, proxies for the human body that evoke memories of childhood and anxieties of the present.

The works by these four artists can indeed be described as parallel. They don’t intersect, in the strictest sense; they are in different mediums, they are figural and abstract, they entertain memory and history and the imagination in different ways, and they defy categorization. Yet they run alongside one another on parallel tracks, pushing forward the sense of humanity and community that exists in our MFA program, and that is sorely needed in the wider world today.

Ivy Cooper Professor of Art History

AND SOMETIMES CHAOS

Palimpsest (2022) | 48” x  24” | Paper on panel, acrylic paint, mixed media

marginal (2023) | 72” x 48” Paper on panel, acrylic paint and medium, solid paint markers, mixed media

www.rachelmcconnellstudio.com

Inthe chaos of life there is an unseen web of order everything is influenced by. When a new element causes a disruption, these systems of connections flow and change, finding a new harmony.  Though when looking at the result, the route taken to reach a new symbiosis can be unclear. We function within these complex systems. These are social taboos, ecosystems, neurodivergence, galaxies, family structures... We live in and around them without always having a complete understanding of how they came to be.

I explore how different contradicting elements come together and develop their own systems. Working intuitively, I start with a set of components that influence an unknown outcome. Using different materials to build layers, I embrace chance and meticulous control striving for a balance within the work. No one piece comes out looking like another just as no one person is completely identical as we grow and develop in these overlapping contradictive complex systems.

Entwine (2023) | 48” x 21” | Acrylic paint on panel, fiber, mixed media

Evan Smith

www.evanandstacey.studio | @evanandstacey.studio

“It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.” – Donald Winnicott

JUMP, TWIST, OR DIVE !

Mywork is rooted in a personal journey of self-discovery and healing. Through an exploration of how one experiences childhood, I have been able to reflect on my own experiences and reconcile with my past. With this new work, I am asking the question “What would I say to my younger self?”

This question has allowed me to look at my childhood through the lens of an adult and explore the experiences and environments that shaped me. By looking back, I have been able to get a better understanding of who I am and how I navigate the world.

Jump, Twist, or Dive! transforms the gallery into a play area, complete with sculptures that form a playground-like space. The representation of these unusable playground objects expresses the uncanny quality of memories and how those memories are both viscerally real and distinct to each person. Three of the sculptures resemble objects we use for play, while the bench is meant for you as the viewer to sit and reflect on your own experiences as a child.

SOMETHING STRANGER THAN FRUIT

The Shoe Doesn’t Fit (2023) | 48” x 72” | Oil paint on wood panel

Exit Strategy (2023) | 48” x 72” | Oil paint on wood panel

Thisbody of work explores historical and modern forms of media, language, arts and culture that have been used as weapons for the enforcement and bolstering of constructs of superiority, racism and othering. The manufacturing, perpetuation and commercialization of stereotypes, biases, and discriminative practices not only misrepresents the Black community, but integrates dynamics of engagement which force them to navigate hostile environments and interactions through

which they are demonized, fetishized, and brutalized. These ideals not only find themselves perpetuated in spaces of extreme oppression and racism, but also in spaces that feign inclusivity and progress. In both, the experience of Black individuals is coopted and curated through lenses, in which the interpretations and diversity of Blackness can be made palatable or easily digestible to the desires of others. This protects insecurities, fears and complexes by sustaining a sense of control and dismissing ownership of the original creation of these ideals as well as the consequences of their integration into society.  Under this pretense, a false dichotomy is created, in which the only perceived spaces for Black people are performing a role that is being projected onto them or accepting the life-threatening risks of not. These dichotomies deny Blackness the freedom to exist without outward definition and policing, presenting a language that “there are consequences” to being Black regardless of where one stands. With this body of work, I seek to present that the Black identity could never be contained within these constructs and the ownership of its grotesque characterizations not only do not represent or belong to the Black community, but are not the responsibility of the Black community to navigate or carry anymore.

Iamintrigued by the development of humanity, particularly in terms of the evolution of one’s consciousness. I see this as a transformative process that affects our individual lives and has the potential to create a ripple effect on others. As a mother, artist, and educator, my work revolves around the desire to uplift humanity and bring inspiration to individual and collective social engagement. Through my work, I provoke the viewer to search for their own inner truth and progression of thought, by presenting the essence of an idea. These ideas represent a transparent fluidity and fleeting quality that I find manifested in various materials, such as glass, porcelain, fiberglass, and reflective metals. This conversation with the viewer unfolds the landscape of our lives and calls attention to the relationship between our innermost thoughts and our experiences.

CLARITY

Debi Zoe Worley is a contemporary multimedia artist currently based in St. Louis, MO. Originally born in the Netherlands, she spent most of her life in the New York City area. Intrigued by the layers of consciousness which make up our individuality, she uses a combination of strong but transparent materials to inspire the viewer to see topics from a new perspective. She is currently an MFA candidate at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and received her BA from Principia College in Elsah, Illinois. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and the U.K.

The Veil (2023) | 108” x 144” | Fabric, ink, fan

Movement (2023) | 8’ x 6’ x 8’ | Resin, monofilament

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville