With their cameras down, kilns cooled and paintbrushes dry, the first-year Masters of Fine Art candidates are ready to unveil their creations.
On Thursday, Jan. 17, a reception will be held in the Trisolini Gallery in Baker University Center to celebrate the opening of “Map: String with Pins,” a first-year graduate student exhibition that will be on display in the gallery until the end of February.
“The reception is the first chance the community will have to see the pieces,” said Emily Beveridge, a first-year MFA candidate studying painting. “The artists will be on hand to discuss their work.”
The title stems from the idea of charting where people came from in order to get to a new place, such as the first-year MFA candidates, many of whom have never studied at Ohio University until this year.
The exhibition will include works from students in the departments of ceramics, graphic design, painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture. All first-year graduate art students organize and participate in the show, each submitting one piece.
“It’s nice to see what is going on with everyone (in the different departments) and the state of art at OU,” said Hannah Cameron, a first-year MFA candidate studying ceramics. “It’s good to have diversity in a show. Similarly themed ideas will be running through the work, no matter the medium.”
With her piece entitled “Drink the Kool-Aid” — meaning to mindlessly accept an idea — Beveridge said her painting was a commentary on art making, that art is an expression of one’s own style.
This exhibition is the first show the first-year MFA candidates have participated in at OU, although they have done continuous work in studios either at the School of Art or at The Ridges.
“Showing your work and putting on a show is an important part of being a working artist, which is what everyone in grad school is working towards,” Beveridge said.
Echoing the importance of the show to the artists, Connaught Cullen, a first-year MFA candidate studying painting and drawing, also mentioned the value of the show to non-art majors.
“Whatever your field is, you should be creative, if not visually but in your thinking,” she said.
mg986611@ohiou.edu
