Light refreshments will be provided at this reception for the MFA Thesis Exhibition.
This annual exhibition at Urban Arts Space showcases the work of practicing contemporary artists who are completing their Master of Fine Arts degree at The Ohio State University's Department of Art.
Participating Artists: Lydia Cornett; Brett Davis; Christine Fashion; James Hartunian; Julia Matejcek; Sara Jean Ruiz; Akeylah Wellington; Chantal Wnuk
Their collective artist statement:
“When we moved here, we talked about the clouds, and we became the cloud cohort, and we sent pictures back and forth because the clouds are different in Ohio. They rise up, and the puffy white and blue sky and green field are a specific Midwest. We texted and we didn’t imagine it.
In winter, the clouds are an even gray, a soft box for documenting artwork and keeping the sky too close to the top of your head. We don’t understand atmospheric pressure (James does), but we understand other kinds of weight (like Chantal’s illness), and we understand looking down at moist dirt because Julia shows us how to see it.
We’re here together and the big cloud is raining, but in Ohio it doesn’t flood like growing up in Akeylah’s Louisiana or Florida. Instead, blue glazes glow against post-industrial gray, and Christine calls us to pick up droplet-covered clay from squishy lawns. Sara refuses to buy an umbrella, so sometimes her pink hair dye drips down her white T-shirt.
Clouds tend to clear. We slowly see a mountain as Brett talks to Toko across a rainstorm and across the world. As a cohort, we met Toko on the cloud with pictures and videos and chickens. We grew and she grew too. We came to school during Covid, and we don’t party quite right, but we collaborate. Lydia picks us up early to grab frames-per-second that get us closer to the world or the sky or a person. Closer to a truth.
The big cloud can be sun-covered or in the internet or full of doom, but we never said we were alike. We were raining and snowing and shining, so we made art and we made a thesis show.”
