Sunday, May 18, 2008

MICA Commencement Exhibition

Michael Benevento in the middle of Bevan Dunbar's installation

MICA's graduating senior class displayed work of all concentrations during the school-wide commencement exhibition. Here are some highlights, good and bad ones, from the show:

Molly and Becca watching Gabriel Held's video piece

Owen Brightman's video installation

This installation ruled. Jaime Bennati's newspaper creations are both beautiful and eco-friendly. It has a haunting, oddly natural feel to its structure, falling somewhere between beehives and barnacles, it looks discovered, rather than manufactured.

Yep, thats a girl in a block of cement or something. Rachel Nefcy, graduating with a degree in exhibitionism...

These etchings by Eric Stiner were among my favorite pieces. He has a beautiful hand, and straightforward presentation

Detail from Tracy Jayne Goosen delicate fiber-arts intstallation

Somebody likes Wayne Thiebaud...not that thats necessarily a bad thing, Tina Spataro's cake paintings

painting by James Swainbank

Print by Molly Colleen O'Conell

Mollie Goldstrom's incredibly elegant print

Rachel Faller is unbelievable. Her somber piece on Cambodia included hand woven Cambodian silk, portraits painted in dye, and a sound installation of voices recordings of refugees.

May Wilson's bronze rats. She also had bronze dogs, a deer and a possum. A little gimmicky, but well rendered!

This project by Meryl Remington, appears to be naked portraits of her family members...which is weird, but totally ballsy and awesome

Alessadra Sulpy 's paintings

Kit Repass killed a lamb, and made books about how to cook/eat/separate all the pieces and displayed them in this weird, ritualistic, circle.

Really?

Amy Lee balances whimsy, melancholy and a highly stylized hand in her prints

Payton Cosell Turner and her penchant for patterns. Wall paper patterns made up entirely of stickers. Turner's work falls into the "clever" category, without being annoying, she has a natural sense of balance and design.

Annie Gugliotta's puppets from an animation piece

Ginger Lukas' incredible vases

This looks like it belongs in the Visionary, which sort of defeats the purpose of a BFA, but its generally well composed and crafted, hopefully Kelly Jean Adamczyk sticks with it.


Nancy Carpio-Gonzales' performance piece, during which she dressed in a knit costume, blindfolded an onlooker and made them break open a pinata...full of cookies....yes, cookies. Again, a little direction goes a long way, there is promise here. And knit costumes are pretty cool.

These kids are embarking on the rest of their lives and careers--which is no easy feat, we wish them nothing but luck and success.