RISD MFAs Show Work in NYC Summer Exhibitions

A multitude of work by RISD MFA students and recent grads is on view this summer in New York City. Artists from RISD’s Ceramics, Painting, Photography and Sculpture departments are sharing new pieces in several philosophical and identity-focused group exhibitions.

The cross-cultural arts organization Protocinema, founded in 2011 by RISD faculty member Mari Spirito, partnered with RISD Sculpture for the exhibition Parable of the Planes in June at the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) downtown gallery space. Curated by Tamara Khasanova as part of Protocinema’s Emerging Curator Series, the show drew inspiration from Ursula Le Guin’s collection of stories Changing Planes. It utilized planes as a metaphor for questioning the boundaries between our subjective realities. 

Associate Professor of Sculpture Heather Rowe, who served as department head for the 2023–24 academic year, says that the exhibition emerged from a fall course titled Afterschool Special taught by Spirito and Amber Hawk Swanson. Offered through the Sculpture department, the seminar was open to students working in other disciplines as well. Part of the curriculum was to understand how visual art influences contemporary thought through the history of curation and exhibition making.

Image

Image

The artists featured include Aiza Ahmed MFA 24 PT, Jaimie An MFA 24 SC, Ashley Bergner MFA 24 PT, Christine Jung MFA 24 CR, Da eun Lee MFA 24 SC, Elena Bulet i Llopis MFA 24 PH, Julia Helen Murray MFA 24 SC, Lorena Park MFA 24 SC, Shori Sims MFA 24 SC and Suiyuan Jin MFA 24 SC.

“I grapple with the question of why we so stubbornly hold on to our set beliefs and ideas of the world,” Khasanova says. “As we feel our planes of existence confine and close in upon us, the ability to change planes, relate to a story that is not immediately our own, and resist retreating into the isolation of set beliefs is what allows us to endure the forces of life alongside one another.”

Uptown at SK Gallery, a show called Trial by Fire is on view through July 14. Curated by Calvin Wang and Leo Cocar, the show features work by RISD Ceramics students and recent grads Kahee Bae MFA 24 CR, Katharine Frank MFA 25 CR, Christine Jung MFA 24 CR, Jaewon Kim MFA 24 CR, Maha Mohan MFA 25 CR, Ana Popescu MFA 25 CR, Yilin Sun MFA 25 CR and Maedeh Tafvizi Zavareh MFA 24 CR.

Image

“The duality of my multigenerational household and a desire to fit in with the American lifestyle has drawn me to examine contradictory situations,” Popescu says of her contribution to the show. She explains that her work explores the subconscious tensions between her lived experiences as an immigrant from Romania growing up in Miami.

Also entering her last year in the Ceramics MFA program, Mohan makes work that incorporates memory and the interpretation of feelings. “Memory is a strange thing,” she says. “The harder I try to keep these recurring visuals alive in my mind, the more distant they look.”

Cocar will also curate a show for new RISD Photography MFAs at Microscope Gallery from August 1–15. The exhibition will feature work by Dai Asano MFA 24 PH, Elena Bulet I Llopis MFA 24 PH, Jingwen Cao MFA 24 PH, Clara Delgado MFA 24 PH, Srikar Sai Hari MFA 24 PH, Sydney Howard MFA 24 PH and Sarah Meftah MFA 24 PH.

Image

“The works they will be exhibiting are an extension of their thesis work,” says Photography Graduate Program Director Laine Rettmer. “The show provides an opportunity for them to take a new and deeper approach to their research.”

The Painting department also presented work in NYC by new MFAs in a show called What Lovers Do, which ran from May 15–22 at the FLAG Art Foundation. The contributing artists included Aiza Ahmed MFA 24 PT, Ashley N. Bergner MFA 24 PT, Aaron Feltman MFA 24 PT, Christopher Huff MFA 24 PT, James Ming Johnson MFA 24 PT, Boluwatife Oyediran MFA 24 PT, Gonçalo Preto MFA 24 PT, Dylan Sheahan MFA 24 PT, Lily Taylor MFA 24 PT and Zainab Zulfiqar MFA 24 PT.

Curated by former RISD faculty member Zoé Samudzi, the show was inspired by French literary theorist Roland Barthes. Through abstraction, realism, portraiture, spatial interiors and exteriors, collage and carving, it presented the cohort’s own creative intercourse: their affective entanglements with internal/private and external/public negotiations of intimacy and self-making.

Kaylee Pugliese / Top image: Parable of the Planes, photo by Suhjeen Moon, work shown by Shori Sims, Elena Bulet i Llopis, Suiyuan Jin and Lorena Park
July 8, 2024