RISD Grad Show 2025 Offers Sprawling, Immersive, Multidisciplinary Experience

Rhode Island’s arts community came out in droves for the opening of RISD Grad Show 2025, the annual celebration of artists and designers earning their master’s degrees from RISD. Once again, the Rhode Island Convention Center’s 43,000-sf exhibition hall was transformed into a sprawling, immersive and multidisciplinary experience for visitors, including parents and family members from around the world preparing to cheer on their students at Commencement 2025 on May 31.

President Crystal Williams describes this year’s show as “a splendid aggregation of powerful work.” Indeed, the wide range of exploratory projects on display—created in 19 academic departments across campus—provide an incredible overview of the RISD graduate student experience.

One of the first installations visitors encounter as they enter the hall is Echoes of Longing, Epilogue: the room, again by Ceramics grad Maha Mohan MFA 25 CR. “The piece is about emotional vulnerability and lived experience,” the artist explains. “My art practice explores existential tension through ceramic sculptures and drawings in which the body exists as both a vessel and a site of memory.”

The body is a core component of many of the works on display, including a powerful untitled piece by Digital + Media grad and cancer survivor Jess Skyleson MFA 25 DM created as part of their thesis project, Resonance. “I wrote letters to my cancer and created a Python program that remixes the words to create responses in the same way the cancer remixes my own cells,” Skyleson says. “There are holes in the full plaster sculpture of my body where the cancer was found, and embedded speakers play my voice reading the cancer’s responses.”

Nearby, a kinetic installation reflecting on maternal mortality rates by Yilin (Rebecca) Sun MFA 25 CR whirs to life, drawing viewers in for a closer look at the tiny ceramic figures ensnared in its netting. An enclosed adjoining space then invites them to experience The Stream of Life, by Digital + Media grad Yitao Yuan MFA 25 DM, which creates a surprising sense of intimacy as it explores the relationship between humans and machines.

Also on view are countless paintings, prints and photographs for the viewer attracted to more traditional 2D formats. The Terror of the Threshold by Haitian-American Painting grad David Legrand MFA 25 PT explores the Black female body at rest. The artist describes the series as an unapologetic reclamation of the Black figure and says that his work is heavily influenced by pieces like Loophole of Retreat by multidisciplinary artist and former RISD faculty member Simone Leigh.

Across the room from Legrand’s paintings, a wall of black-and-white photographs by Katelynn Rogers MFA 25 PH who just earned her degree in Photography explores maternal loss, environmental decay and senseless acts of violence in the artist’s hometown of Canton, OH. “Through conversations with abuse survivors and women reconciling with their own losses, I’ve begun to piece together a web of images that discuss how violence and grief haunt a landscape and a body,” Rogers explains.

Work by Printmaking grad Alfonso Vicencio MFA 25 PR incorporates trees in an entirely different way. Using inkjet printing, lithography and acrylic paint, Vicencio makes bold images that play with the idea of hyperreality. “All of the work starts as digital collages using photos of my TV screen,” he explains. “I rework and recycle the images again and again to create new media.”

In the realm of architecture and design, projects on view explore the intersection of ecological systems and built environments, critically reflecting on the effects of climate crisis, urbanization, colonization and environmental degradation. Interior Architecture grad Mill Shah MDes 25, for example, zeros in on deteriorating residential architecture via her thesis project TerraShift: Regenerative Practices in Forgotten Cities of India. “My work strikes a balance between preservation and transformation,” she says. “It uncovers the hidden potential of existing structures, breathing new life into them while honoring their past.”

Visit the exhibition before it closes on May 29 or get a closer look online.

Simone Solondz / photos by Jo Sittenfeld MFA 08 PH
May 27, 2025