MFA Thesis Exhibition

Columbia University MFA Thesis Exhibition 

Lenfest Center for the Arts, New York, NY

Curated by Elisabeth Sherman

May 2022

In my Thesis Exhibition, two paintings are of storefront windows, illuminated by the sun around midday, bridging the gap between exposure and enclosure. The third painting is based on a still life I set up on my desk and then enlarged. The two sculptures were inspired first by found materials: mirrored aluminum and cardboard respectively. They are both miniatures, but one is bigger than a human and the other is smaller. They are adorned with things I have made or saved and then repurposed.

Since the installation is set up next to windows and the skyscape, I have begun to see what sunlight can do to transform a space, to produce a shadow that moves from the ground to the wall, that distorts, enlarges, and mutates a form. Installed in the Lenfest Center for the Arts, the sun streaming in through the window frames produce a shadow that resembles a wonky sidewalk. The roof of Through and through is made of shingles, a mirrored grid, that refracts the sun and adds a loose checkerboard of marks onto the flat surfaces that surround it. Around 4pm a calligraphic light spot appears and becomes an interim graffiti on the oil paint graffiti in Getting to the bottom of it.

I aim to put my viewer in a position to negotiate what surrounds them. Discernable elements serve as clues, but various fragments don’t always coalesce. Cell compartments (paintings within the painting) portray what is unnamable. Precision in both mark-making and recognition are rendered futile as the whole resists fully coming into being. Mystery and multiplicity are key for me, the double meeting, the divided self, the self that is made only in relation to a unique perception of context, and the context that’s made only in relation to the notion of the self. 

Installation view

Jaywalker, 2022

Oil on canvas

68 x 56 in.

Jaywalker, detail

Jaywalker, detail

Getting to the bottom of it, 2022

Oil on canvas

68 x 56 in.

Getting to the bottom of it, detail

Getting to the bottom of it, detail

They fly and walk and float and run, 2022

Oil on canvas, plaster, steel wire

72 x 42 in.

They fly and walk and float and run, detail

They fly and walk and float and run, detail

Through and through, detail

Through and through, detail

Through and through, detail

Goofing off, 2022

Oil on porcelain, nail polish on plaster, and found objects

Goofing off, installation view

Goofing off, detail

Installation view