Fine Arts Portfolio Review Helps Students Consider Life After RISD

“Having your friends review your portfolio is great, but it’s really important to get more objective feedback from people who don’t know you,” says new grad Winnie Wang MFA 23 JM. The recent Jewelry + Metalsmithing student was speaking about RISD’s annual Fine Arts Portfolio Review, which she participated in (along with more than 150 other RISD students) in April. 

“Every artist is faced with the challenge of securing their first exhibitions, first grants and first residencies,” says Career Center Director Kevin Jankowski 88 IL. “The Fine Arts Portfolio Review helps prepare them to transition from art school to the professional world.”

Portfolio reviewer Tiffany Bradley is founder of the arts organization Colored Criticism, which supports artists of color. She has been collaborating with Jankowski and his team since she graduated from Brown University more than 15 years ago. She keeps coming back to RISD’s portfolio reviews, she says, “because [she sees] a real rigor in analysis and thought in the work of RISD students. They’re thinking very deeply, and that comes out in the work they make.”


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One of the students Bradley met with this year is Isaiah Aladejobi MID 23, who just earned his master’s degree in Industrial Design. “I have been trying to showcase my work to the fine arts world,” he says, “and figuring out where I might fit in.” Aladejobi walked reviewers through a slide show documenting Kole, his senior thesis project developing tactile building blocks for kids inspired by his Yoruba (West African) culture. 

Grad student Ariel Wills MFA 24 IL (see top image, above, a still from her stop-motion animation Train Ride, 2023, which was selected to be shown in the Athens Film Festival) took a different approach with reviewers, using her short time with each professional to gather feedback on her website. “It’s hard to figure out where my work fits in because it’s so multidisciplinary and hybridized, so it’s difficult to make a quick elevator pitch,” she says.

Wills describes the portfolio review as “a really a positive and motivating experience” and says it allowed her to make some good connections. This summer she will travel to Rome as the TA for a RISD Global course and then spend some time working in her Providence studio. 

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Fellow illustrator Abena Gyampo 23 IL, who just earned her BFA, says her goal in participating in the review was “making contact with independent curators and gallerists. I’d like to live in the South after RISD,” she adds. “There aren’t as many galleries as there are up here, but I think there is less competition.”

West Coast gallerist Derek Franklin of Converge 45 in Portland, OR, shows a lot of East Coast artists but says his goal in participating in the Fine Arts Portfolio Review is about supporting up-and-coming artists. “The arts ecosystem is so vast,” he notes. “I try to help students figure out what success means for them and how to build their community after school.”

New grad Yunwei Zhou MFA 23 PH knows that he’ll be heading back to China after his visa runs out next year and hopes to show his work here in the US before then and perhaps land an artist residency. “Most of my work is physical installations, so I included videos documenting the projects and walked reviewers through my portfolio to start the conversation,” he says. “I’m not too concerned about finding a studio. I do need space to do my work, but I don’t need specialized equipment like glass makers or ceramicists do.”

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“The arts ecosystem is so vast. I try to help students figure out what success means for them and how to build their community after school.”

Gallerist Derek Franklin

New grad JaLeel Marques Porcha 23 PH/SC is planning to slow down and catch their breath this summer before embarking on an MFA at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts. “My practice is geared toward educational and social engagement,” they explain, “so I was trying to connect with communities interested in my kind of work and supporting me as a fine artist. Portfolio reviews help you make decisions about where you want to go, what communities are supporting particular kinds of work and who you might enjoy working with.”

Last fall, Porcha worked closely with the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA, where they mounted a solo exhibition with the help of Executive Director Crista Dix. “I’m always looking for new creative talents who are bringing forth ideas that haven’t been addressed,” says Dix. “I learn something new every time I meet with RISD students.” 

—Simone Solondz / top image: still from Train Ride, stop-motion animation by Ariel Wills MFA 24 IL

June 20, 2023