Category — Alumni Updates

MFA Alums Cole Caswell ‘08 and Jessica George ‘09, have an exhibition at USM’s Area Gallery in Portland, ME.

Patches Within Proximity
USM: Area Gallery | Portland, ME
March 12th – April 30th 2010

Using photographic, painterly, drawing, and design processes, Cole Caswell and Jessica George explore the dynamic shape of ecosystems within our local landscapes. Caswell states: “Using technology and mobile data I engage and record the contemporary landscape through a practice, which considers the evolution of the landscape’s conditions.”

Caswell and George each received an interdisciplinary M.F.A. from the Maine College of Art, and have been working, living, and observing on Peaks Island. Over the last few years they co-founded The Geographic Observatory. The Geographic Observatory uses systems of observation, perception, and exploration to form cross discipline perspectives on relationships between community and the landscape.

MFA Alum Tina Zagyva ‘09 has a solo exhibition at the Bauchhund Gallery in Berlin.

Themselves Has Been a Gathering: Vessel #2
Bauchhund Gallery | Berlin, Germany
February 13th – March 13th 2010

photos: Tina Zagyva

MFA Alum Kevin Dacey ‘07 has a new exhibition of drawings up at the Raymond LaFontaine Art Center.

NEGOTIANTS + TRANSITIONERS
Raymond LaFontaine Art Center | Gardner, MA
February 1st – March 6th 2010

Randy Regier, MFA ‘07, was recently asked to guest-write a photo essay about his NuPenny project for the “Circle into Square” arts and community website in Portland, Oregon.

Read the full essay (and see more images!) on the Circle into Square website.

The MFA program would like to open its office doors to promote work of MECA MFA students and alum in The M+B Gallery. During the year the MFA office see countless perspective students, trustees, archive users, and many friends of the institution. By displaying alumni work in our space we hope not only to promote our program but to continue a bridge between the alumni and the current students. Work will rotate every 3 months.

The space itself is comprised of our main wall which is 9’ X 14’ wide. The space is not restricted to only 2D work. At the threshold of our office is a digital LCD projector affixed to the ceiling for projection and sound. Video would loop during business hours Monday –Fridays.

Deadline: March 15th 2010
To Submit Work: click here to apply.
Contact: Stacy Howe MFA ‘10, Gallery Coordinator
(showe [at] meca [dot] edu)

MFA Alum Anna Shapiro ‘00 has a new exhibition of paintings up at the BankRI Pitman Street Gallery.  The Phoenix Providence recently selected it as an Editor’s Pick.

Recent Paintings by Anna Shapiro
BankRI Pitman Street Gallery | Providence, RI
January 7th – February 3rd 2010

“I really love making things about beauty,” says Anna Shapiro, “even if they’re not beautiful.” The founding director of Firehouse 13 has made a big dent in the local arts scene in the last few years. Between her paintings and her sculptures, she is constantly at work. “I’m always exploring the juncture of humans and nature in some way. I have an eco-feminist perspective. I’m interested in how the earth is treated, how the land is treated, and how women are treated.”

Randy Regier, MFA ‘07,’s work at the 2010 DeCordova Biennial in Lincoln, MA was reviewed in The Boston Phoenix.

Portland artist Randy Regier’s work is just beginning to be known, but he may be one of the best sculptors in the country. In the 2010 DeCordova Biennial at the DeCordova Sculpture Park + Museum, Regier has installed Honorable Mention: H. Maxwell Fisher and the Space Race, a “life-size” spacecraft, spacesuit, and related ephemera. Your senses tell you this wondrous, crackpot 1950s Buck Rogers dream machine is real. And you — particularly if you’re a certain kind of boy — may want to believe it’s real. But your mind insists that it’s fake. The result of this contradiction is a pleasurable mental short circuit.

The Fisher Fire Fly spacecraft is a ball-shaped capsule atop a cone-shaped thruster with three landing-gear legs. It’s painted Wizard of Oz emerald green. The top of the capsule is scuffed and blistered, as if scorched during passage through the earth’s atmosphere. Peer inside the open hatch and you find a metal-frame seat, wires, hoses, switches, and dials. Everything appears authentically old, right down to the musty industrial smell.

Read more online.

Paul Bloodgood, MFA ‘03, exhibits new paintings at the Walter Keller Gallery in Zurich.

Anne Chu, Paul Bloodgood, Peter Emch
Walter Keller Gallery | Zurich, Switzerland
December 10, 2009 – January 30, 2010

“I’ve come to the realization that a landscape is part of a larger energetic system; that it is not constant in form, structure or proportion; and that any attempts to capture both the rough topography and the sensorial experience of landscape in painting must include an active human presence. The essential reality of nature is not separating, self-contained, and complete in itself. Rather, nature’s unfolding truth emerges only with the active participation of the human mind.

I believe that painting’s particular calling is to initiate this type of engagement. I also believe that the traditions of abstract painting (such as those developed by the three artists I mention above) are particularly suited to the task. Abstraction’s imperative to grant the medium priority over the subject matter allows for an exploration of the expressive capability of line as an embodiment of naturalistic form and of human values.”
Paul Bloodgood

Daniel Kany reviews MFA alum Susan Bickford’s October performance at University of Maine at Augusta.

In “exquisite corpse,” Bickford attaches four video cameras to four monitors stacked one above the other to give the viewer a fractured picture of himself: feet, legs, torso, head. The images vary in size and move at different speeds. It is very smart fun.

Bickford’s pieces are easy enough to access and enjoy. She has worked with the gallery docents to ensure the viewers feel welcome and understand how the show is interactive. She has posted wall texts for each piece that, in a dark room, act more like humble afterthoughts than starting points – helpful, but not oppressive.

Read the whole review online here.

H2O: Film on Water Redux
Cynthia Reeves | New York, NY
November 19th – December 23rd, Reception: Nov. 19th, 6 – 8 pm

H2O: Film on Water Redux, an edited version of the celebrated Great River Arts project, H2O: Film on Water, comes to CYNTHIA-REEVES on November 19th. The exhibition runs through December 23rd.*

H2O: Film on Water is a mixed media exhibition, which was on view at four venues throughout the Connecticut River Valley, August 7th – November 7th. The exhibition originally included a diverse group of mixed media artworks from over 65 artists, and placed a focus on the Connecticut River Valley and its attendant waterways. At the core of the show were curated artworks from emerging and established artists, such as Mike and Doug Starn, Amy Globus, Clare Langan and Peter Brooke, augmented by 40 juried video art projects selected through a juried competition.

H2O: Film on Water Redux includes video art projects by Magdalena Fernandez, Amy Globus, Jenn Moller and Clare Langan; photographs by Doug and Mike Starn, and Daniel Wheeler; paintings by Peter Brooke, and site-based installations by Beth Galston and Avy Claire.

While the location shifts to New York City and the Hudson River, the show’s raison d’etre remains unchanged– to utilize artwork’s inherent emotional content as a catalyst to bring awareness to world water issues–art as a transformative agent. The theme is timely one, given the current focus on identifying climatic change and its effect on our lives, and on those throughout the world who struggle to access potable water.

For this exhibition and H2O: Film on Water Redux, Great River Arts and CYNTHIA-REEVES partners with Water for People, a non-profit organization that develops locally sustainable drinking water and sanitation facilities in developing countries throughout the world. We invite you to an event hosted by Water for People on December 3, 6 – 8 pm where their representatives will discuss the organization’s mission and their approach to bringing solutions to developing communities.