UMass Dartmouth College of Visual & Performing Arts 2021 MFA Thesis Exhibition

COLLEGE OF VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS UMASS DARTMOUTH M A R C H 3 0 — M AY 7

Valleri Rami, Madison Moreno, Paulina Fuenzalida-Guzmán

2021 MFA THESIS EXHIBITION

This annual exhibition celebrates the ART + DESIGN work of graduating students from the College of Visual and Performing Arts graduate program in a large-scale exhibition at the Star Store Campus.

EXHIBITING ARTISTS

Ryan Cooley Paulina Fuenzalida-Guzmán Taylor Hickey Shabnam Jannesari Sung Ji Lee 이성지 Madison Moreno Danielle O’Malley Valleri Rami Cynthia Bryndis Schilling Vu Tran Duc Binh Emma Young

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GREETINGS FROM THE OFFICE OF THE DEAN I am very pleased to be able to offer my heartfelt congratulations to our MFA class of 2021 both on completing your degrees and for a really beautiful final exhibition. I also offer my best wishes for what I know will be a bright and successful future for all of you.

This year’s MFA show represents the work of eleven emerging artists who have met the challenges of their degree program with creativity and rigor. Their work is the result of two or three years of exploration, struggle, discovery, and, at least for now, resolution. It is also a harbinger of things to come. The need to express oneself in the visual arts does not end with an MFA; instead, the years spent here in graduate studies has been precious time to reflect, explore, and refine. It is, however, only a small although formative moment in what will be a whole lifetime of creative expression.

While this work is perhaps not about pandemic or the social, political, and economic issues it has raised, it was certainly forged by the unique time of COVID-19. The members of last year’s class endured the disruption of the pandemic at the end of their MFA studies. This year’s class has with grace and good humor overcome the complicated pressures of uncertainty, anxiety, and isolation brought on by this crisis and has done it with the additional burden of the 4

unprecedented logistics of learning and creating COVID has imposed. To the graduating students, then, I would like to say that the pandemic does not define your work in this exhibition, but it will always mark your graduate experience, as it has affected and impacted all of us. Thank you for your persistence and your dedication to your work.

Your accomplishments here are particularly notable this year, and you should all be very proud of that.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge and thank the faculty whose rigorous expectations have pushed these graduates to new and exciting levels in their work. Thanks also to Viera Levitt who has worked so diligently with the graduates to create an extraordinary exhibition, and my gratitude as always to Thomas Stubblefield and Spencer Ladd for their leadership in the MFA program through a difficult time, to Michelle Bowers and Paula Erenberg Medeiros and all who assisted them in creating this catalog and our online exhibition. Finally, a sincere thank you to all of you, friends and families, who have supported and sacrificed for our students. You have given them the space and the support they needed to achieve what they have.

Lawrence Jenkens, Dean College of Visual and Performing Arts

NOTES FROM THE EXHIBITION CURATOR When we finished installing last year’s MFA Thesis Exhibition, we never expected to have yet another show take place with the restrictions of social distancing and other COVID-related precautions. Yet here we are again, a year later, listening to the artists’ talk on the screen rather than watching them in person. This year, another stamped with the imprimatur of the pandemic, has been intense, at times quite overwhelming and, of course, marked by anxiety as a stubborn companion.

And yet, the art that has emerged is powerful and honest.

The works these young people have created respond with sensitivity and creativity to a world turned upside down. Our students kept working on their art because that's what artists do even during a time when there is little predictability. In doing so they showed us how to cope and continue in the midst of uncertainty.

We are presenting work that is fragile, broken, sometimes loud, sometimes quiet, that represents the inner and outer worlds as well as those of the cosmic realm. There is so much behind these artworks - markings of touch left on ceramic pieces, imprints of nature on handmade paper, traces of careful stitching on pieces of fabric, as well as music and quiet meditation. This exhibition guides us, through focused looking at the works of art, towards healing and recharging.

Thank you to all the 2021 graduates for making this possible.

Viera Levitt, Gallery Director

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RYAN COOLEY STATEMENT

BIOGRAPHY

My work is inspired by the marks that trauma leaves on people. Everyone experiences life in their own way, and there’s no objective way to calculate the amount of damage events can do to people, but you can see what’s left when the trauma passes. Most of us find ways to carry on with varying degrees of functionality, but I have never met anyone who hasn’t been shaped by some form of trauma.

I use vessels to embody the metaphorical effects of trauma and how they form and deform the persona we present to— or hide from—the world.

Ryan Cooley has interests as diverse as the places he’s lived—which spans three continents and 10 U.S. states.

After getting a BA in Organizational Communications, he pursued his love of languages and culture. He added a fourth and fifth language and an AA in Persian Studies to his repertoire by working as a translator and analyst for the Air Force and NSA. After the military, Ryan started an independent jewelry company with his wife, but quickly realized he loved metal itself as much as making jewelry. His work blends techniques from multiple cultures that range from ancient to modern.

He uses metal to show insights he has gained learning about people for so many years.

Getting Ahead, 2021 copper, enamel, graphite, PVA adhesive, EVA adhesive 5" x 6" x 16"

Burnout, 2020 copper, graphite, charcoal 20" x 18" x 7"

Discarded, 2020 copper, enamel, graphite 10" x 8" x 24"

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PAULINA FUENZALIDA-GUZMÁN STATEMENT

BIOGRAPHY

We have all experienced physical, spiritual, or psychic pain at some point in our lives. Through textiles and handmade felt, I create pieces and installations that reflect these experiences of suffering and the resulting fragility.

Regardless of language, race, or culture, I intend to show the viewer how we are connected and how we can relate to each other through our individual and collective pain. Art becomes the dimension in which I can transform grief into hope, fear into opportunity, and ugliness into beauty.

Paulina Fuenzalida-Guzmán was born in Santiago, Chile.

Her background is in interior design and journalism. In 2018, Paulina decided to move with her family to New Bedford, Massachusetts, to pursue an MFA in Fibers at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

The Cord of Life, 2021

I Am Losing Consciousness, 2021 laser cut hand-felted merino wool 40" x 33"

hand-felted merino wool, organza silk, wire 6.5′ x 6′

Chile; Not To Forget Them, 2018 hand-felted merino wool, dye, burlap, jute 8.6′ x 4′

Earlier work addressed human rights violations during the collapse of democracy in Chile; her current body of work reflects the concept of identity as the result of oneself plus one’s circumstances.

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TAYLOR HICKEY STATEMENT

Cosmology is the scientific study of the cosmos – the universe in its entirety. The term sublime, as it is used in aesthetics, evades such easy definition. Edmund Burke wrote that the sublime is the strongest emotion the human mind is capable of feeling, while Kant associated the sublime with divine pleasure rooted in the superiority of reason over nature. Both believed the sublime to have universal moral importance and the power to transform the self.

Artists, scientists, and polymaths alike have passionately pursued cosmology for centuries. Fueled by a fervent desire to understand the incomprehensible, many turned to geometry to help them make sense of the universe and its properties.

Examples range from Pythagoras to M.C. Escher. Thus, geometry has become a vital tool for envisioning the abstract mathematics that define our universe. Incidentally, in the public eye geometry is often seen as captivating and beautiful, even spiritual.

My work can be found at a crossroad where the cosmological and mathematical intertwine with the sublime and beautiful – where philosophic questions meet scientific inquiry and Icosahedron, 2019 linocut, paper sculpture and LEDs 11" x 11" x 11"

scientific truth. With this installation, I seek to remind viewers of their place within the vastness of the cosmos.

Elements of light and geometry enmeshed with organic, celestial relief prints call to mind the profound mysteries of our existence – those grand questions of purpose and meaning, of beginnings and ends, of infinity – and pay homage to humankind’s most noble endeavor to understand everything.

BIOGRAPHY

Taylor Hickey is an American printmaker, bookmaker, and sculptor working out of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Born and raised in Southeast Texas, Taylor earned her BA in Visual Arts from McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Her work has been exhibited in galleries across the country and she has participated in print exchanges both locally and internationally. She is currently an MFA candidate in Printmaking at UMass Dartmouth, developing a body of work which acknowledges and pays homage to the human endeavor to understand the universe at large.

Black Hole Blues, 2019 artist's book 6" x 4.5" x 18" 11

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SHABNAM JANNESARI STATEMENT

Iranian patriarchal society censors female independence – restricting what women can do, where they can go and what they can express. Because of these rules, women must cover their bodies with a hijab. Nonetheless, many women are conflicted – overtly following the rules of their families/ society and covertly fighting these limitations by pushing the boundaries and breaking the rules. Those who ascribe to cultural religious prescription, believe that women’s hair attracts men, and that a woman’s body spawns temptation and guilt. My own awareness of the effects of these social values is also personal: one of my friends was a victim of an acid attack because she was not wearing an “appropriate” hijab, a heinous act that limited her mobility and resulted in social isolation.

To counter this severe censorship, I am inspired to channel Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopic space and create environments where women can exist freely. Foucault writes, “The traditional garden of the Persians was a sacred space that was supposed to unite four separate parts within its rectangle, representing the four parts of the world, Azin is Getting Married, 2020 oil on canvas 55" x 82"

as well as one space still more sacred than the others, a space that was like the navel, the center of the world brought into the garden…” (Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias). Their versatility allows me to construct an ideal, secret world outside of expectations and convention.

While these paintings express my personal story they also reflect the life of Iranians and of all suppressed women.

I address the complexity of Iranian female identity in the imagined space that departs from reality, creating a special, supportive, heterotopic representation.

BIOGRAPHY

Shabnam Jannesari is an Iranian artist and a MFA candidate at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

She incorporates drawing and painting to explore a nostalgia of distant intimacies in her life. She illuminates the plight of the Iranian woman, censored by an overreaching patriarchy. Jannesari’s paintings express her personal story, but they also reflect on the suppression of women across Iran. Jannesari’s carefully composed figures empower the complex realities of Iranian female identity.

Hierarchy, 2020 oil on canvas 55" x 88" 13

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SUNG JI LEE 이성지 STATEMENT

BIOGRAPHY

Over time, memories fade; their fragments are fossilized and reside somewhere in my unconscious mind. Each fragment is not very clear but has subtle tracks. They could be found in various forms like objects, smells, colors, and emotions. I explore those fragments which have been hidden for a while, to paraphrase Walter Benjamin, like a man digging the earth to find dead cities.

I try to synthesize my old memories across time to make them live again in my work. In this process, memories are no longer ambiguous, but they are articulated in a tangible and visible form.

Sung Ji Lee is a fiber artist who uses traditional textile techniques such as knitting, crocheting, weaving, tapestry, and embroidery to create mixed media textile art and installation. Her work is heavily influenced by the personal history of memories. She juxtaposes textile elements with ceramic objects to embody the duality of memories; motionless and evolving. She is currently a fiber MFA candidate at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She received a B.S. and M.S. in clothing and textiles and a Ph.D. in clothing ergonomics from Seoul National University in Seoul, Korea.

The Birth of Memories, 2020 ceramic, linen, yarn 50" x 80" x 50"

Melting Memories, 2021 thread, ceramic, glue sticks 45" x 48" x 40"

Hide and Seek, 2021 organza, thread, wire 14" x 28" x 18"

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MADISON MORENO STATEMENT

BIOGRAPHY

Through creating installations and sculpture that draw upon autobiographical sources, I am exploring the ambiguity of memory, shared trauma, and how individuals come to terms with loss and grief. Within my work the family becomes monumentalized through the erection of grand domestic spaces incorporating iconographic household items such as ceramic tableware and portraiture. I utilize clay as a medium that can be manipulated, taking identifiable objects and rendering them soft to suggest the wilting effect of time, or brittle to infer breakage and fragmentation. The morphing of objects becomes a process to examine the impact of time, and the disfiguration of memory on domestic routine and experience.

Madison Moreno grew up flying between the outskirts of Philadelphia and New Orleans spending time with her family and particularly with her five younger brothers. She received a Bachelors of Social Work (BSW) from Juniata College in 2017, and a Post-Baccalaureate in Ceramics from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2018.

Madison creates large scale installation and sculptural work with reference to domesticity. She has also been involved with the New Bedford community through her work with the New Bedford Art Museum/ArtWorks programs and classes.

The World Forgetting, by the World Forgot, 2021 clay, wire, mirror, foam 5′ x 5′ x 3′

Triptych: Experiencing, Remembering, Forgetting, 2021 clay, candles, found frames, cloth right lantern: 29" x 29" x 3.5′

A Presence of Departed Acts (detail), 2021 clay, glaze, found frames, candles

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DANIELLE O’MALLEY STATEMENT

BIOGRAPHY

As a sculptor, Danielle O’Malley works primarily with clay and utilizes monumentality, materiality, and installation to assess the human species’ role in the environmental crisis and heighten the viewer’s cognizance of local and global ecologies.

Danielle O’Malley is a large-scale sculptor working and residing in Helena, Montana. O’Malley received her MFA from the UMass Dartmouth, completed a ceramics focused post baccalaureate program at Montana State University, and her BFA from Plymouth State University. She has been a resident artist at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, the Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art, and the Red Lodge Clay Center. She consistently participates in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally. O’Malley’s work can be found in the collections of The Northwest Art Gallery in Minot, ND, the Silver Bow Art Gallery in Butte, MT, and the Taoxichuan Art Center in Jingdezhen, China.

A Precarious Situation, 2020 handbuilt earthenware, upcycled and crocheted plastic bags, handmade paper from harvested plants, rocks mixed media 5′ x 3.5′ x 1.5′

An Unstable Foundation, 2020 handbuilt earthenware, upcycled and crocheted plastic bags, handmade paper from harvested plants 7′ x 2.5′ x 2′

Sink or Swim, 2020 hand built earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, woven electrical wire, knit and crocheted fishing line, handmade paper from upcycled old clothing and harvested plants, rust dye, antique hooks 7′ x 2.5′ x 2′ 19

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VALLERI RAMI STATEMENT

BIOGRAPHY

My abstract sculptures are oddly familiar but strangely unique. The forms reverberate self-assuredness and privacy by way of rich interiors that have confidence in and of itself. The pieces I create are self-sufficient worlds which become metaphors for ambiguous spaces. I aim to illustrate personal psychology, identity, and culture in a visually abstract but physically concrete way. The body of work spans several different states of being– some are precarious, some are more sure-footed, some more open, while others more closed off. My content is navigational experience of minority identities and the failure of belonging in and subscribing to capitalistic, colonialist, and heteronormative culture.

Valleri was born in Mumbai, India and grew up in Grand Forks, ND. She graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN with a B.A. in Psychology in 2017. She received a post-Baccalaureate certificate in ceramics at UMass Dartmouth prior to the MFA program and was a recipient of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts Multicultural Fellowship in 2019.

Untitled 121, 2020 handbuilt ceramic 6.5" x 6" x 11.5"

Untitled 521, 2021 handbuilt ceramic 24" x 21" x 26"

Untitled 621, 2021 handbuilt ceramic 12.5" x 11.5" x 16.5"

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CYNTHIA BRYNDIS SCHILLING STATEMENT

BIOGRAPHY

As a graphic designer and pianist, I am inspired by the similarities between music and design. This artist’s book is a visualization and analysis of Sonata no. 2 by the composer Alexander Scriabin. The color, typography, and composition of the images and book reflect the structural and expressive qualities of the music.

Cynthia is an MFA candidate in Graphic Design at UMass Dartmouth. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from UMass Amherst, and a Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies: Art & Design from Fitchburg State University. As a designer, Cynthia especially enjoys creating design material for music organizations, where she can draw upon her backgrounds in both music and design.

Measures 75–76, 2021 mixed media 11" x 13"

Shostakovich P&F poster, 2020 mixed media 20″ x 30″

Scriabin Sonata no. 2 poster, 2020 mixed media 18″ x 24″

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VU TRAN DUC BINH STATEMENT

BIOGRAPHY

After struggling with the many challenges in a new nation, I have realized home, place, and memories are central to my process. For two years, I have created new work from two points of view. The first represents the emotions and memories of my life in Hanoi. The second signifies how those memories and emotions changed while I experienced a new life in the United States.

Tran Duc Binh Vu is a graphic artist from Hanoi, Vietnam. After graduating with a Bachelor of Multimedia Arts in his homeland, he flew to the United States to pursue an MFA in Graphic Design at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. COVID interrupted his studies. He has used the unfortunate circumstance to develop his graduate thesis in Hanoi.

The Early Summer Rain, 2020 digital collage 8″ x 10″

Vietnam, 2021 digital collage 20″ x 30″

Vietnam, 2021 digital collage 20″ x 30″

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EMMA YOUNG STATEMENT

BIOGRAPHY

I engage in deliberate, physical craft practices as a means of exploring the materiality of language and knowledge.

When writing, the letterform is an elemental eventuation of thought, and a single thread forms texture and pattern in weaving. These are the products of thinking in process.

Beginning with a love of language and a belief that literacy is liberatory, Emma is a poet, designer, and craftsperson. She leads accessible workshops in writing and book arts for all ages and has worked on literacy projects with public libraries and nonprofit organizations.

My research reconsiders systems and pedagogy across disciplines, and I present social and labor history through these lenses. My poems exist in the work as a personal, contemporaneous experience.

She holds a BA from Hampshire College in writing and literature and served as Poet Laureate of the Town of West Tisbury on Martha’s Vineyard Island, where she runs a small design studio focused on typeset letterpress printing and handmade papers.

In this body of work, I grew plants for papermaking, dyeing, and inks. The texture and color of my papers result from this labor and support my poems, photographs, and drawings, which in turn document my processes. I regard all products of my labor, textual and material, as the articulation of knowledge, as language.

As a Teaching Fellow, UMassD CVPA Senator, Secretary for the Graduate Student Senate, and Chancellor’s Centennial Scholar, Emma found great value as a part of this community.

varied clarity: an index, 2021 handmade paper and ink, natural dye, cloth, reclaimed lumber 7′ x 14′ installation 27

RYAN COOLEY

Jewelry/Metals cooleyrw@gmail.com Instagram @JewelAndHammer

TAYLOR HICKEY

Printmaking taylorhickeyart@gmail.com taylorhickeyart.com Instagram @taylorhickeyart

SUNG JI LEE 이성지

Fibers tinkermeer@gmail.com Instagram @tinkermeer

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2021 MFA THESIS EXHIBITION

PAULINA FUENZALIDA-GUZMÁN

Fibers paulifuenza@gmail.com paulinarte.blogspot.com Instagram @paulina_arte Facebook @FieltrosPaulinarte

SHABNAM JANNESARI

Painting shabnamjannesari@gmail.com shbnmjannesari2.wixsite.com/portfolio Instagram @shabnam.jannesari

MADISON MORENO

Ceramics madisonmoreno00@gmail.com madisonceramics.com Instagram @morenme13 Facebook @madisonmoreno00

DANIELLE O'MALLEY

VALLERI RAMI

Ceramics omalleyceramics@gmail.com Instagram @omalley_art

Ceramics valleri.rami@gmail.com vallerirami.com Instagram @valleri.rami

CYNTHIA BRYNDIS SCHILLING

VŨ TRẦN ĐỨC BÌNH

Graphic Design cynthia@cynthiaschilling.com cynthiaschilling.com

Graphic Design binhvu10394@gmail.com behance.net/VTDB

EMMA YOUNG

Graphic Design printedwork@gmail.com ENYprintedwork.com Instagram @emmanicholasyoung

2021 MFA THESIS EXHIBITION

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Taylor Hickey, Shabnam Jannesari, Vũ Trần Đức Bình, Cynthia Bryndis Schilling, Sung Ji Lee, Madison Moreno

Valleri Rami, Sung Ji Lee, Paulina Fuenzalida-Guzmán, Ryan Cooley, Taylor Hickey

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Paulina Fuenzalida-Guzmán, Danielle O'Malley, Valleri Rami

Emma Young, Ryan Cooley, Danielle O'Malley

2021 MFA THESIS EXHIBITION College of Visual and Performing Arts University of Massachusetts Dartmouth March 30 — May 7, 2021

EDITOR Viera Levitt

PUBLICATION ASSISTANT Rosalia Amato

PHOTOGRAPHERS Viera Levitt Gabriela Herman Spencer Ladd Hope Millham Student Archives

DESIGN

THANK YOU We would like to thank Associate Professor Michelle Bowers for designing promotional materials and this catalog, Paula Erenberg Medeiros for creating our online gallery website, and Dean Lawrence Jenkens for his ongoing support.

UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY College of Visual and Performing Arts UMass Dartmouth Star Store Campus 715 Purchase Street New Bedford, MA 02740 Viera Levitt, Gallery Director email: gallery@umassd.edu phone: 508 999 8555 CVPA at UMass Dartmouth is a proud partner of AHA! (Art, History, & Architecture) Night — New Bedford’s free Downtown cultural event and collaborative organization.

Michelle Bowers

PRINTING Mallard Printing ISBN: 978-1-7338036-3-2

Offering an art school experience within a four-year, research university setting, CVPA at UMass Dartmouth offers programs in Art + Design, Art History, Art Education, and Music.

CVPA courses are taught on two campuses: Paul Rudolph’s distinctive architecture of the main campus in Dartmouth, and the Star Store Campus in Downtown New Bedford.

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Shabnam Jannesari, Sung Ji Lee, Madison Moreno