THE GRADUATE PROGRAMS OF MASSACHUSETTS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN
POST– BACCALAUREATE PROGRAM EXHIBIT
APRIL 28 – MAY 7 DORAN GALLERY, 600 Huntingt on Avenue, Boston MA 02115
INTRODUCTION 5
SAUL BAIZMAN 6 LESLIE CONDON 8
CATHERINE J. DAVIS
10
MELISSA FRIEBE 12 JESS ROBSON 14 MEGAN ROCHE 16 DANNY SCHISSLER 18 AMBER VISTEIN 20 CHELSEA WELSH 22
INTRODUCTION
Goethe once noted that there is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art. For the past year, the nine artists in MassArt’s Post-Baccalaureate program have been testing the waters of evasion and connection in the immersive laboratory that is art school. During this time, they found new ways of giving voice to their creative impulses by using and challenging the assumptions of their predecessors. They acquired better tools for measuring the metaphorical dimensions of the world, and began learning the language of their personal contradictions. All of them embraced the power of art to transform and did so in order to merge what they do with who they are. Simply put, they became artists. The work that emerged represents a range of responses to the world. It includes wry photographs of the suburban terrain; humorous sculptural transformations of everyday objects; psychologically resonant night landscapes; beautifully strange and confrontational self-portraits; graphically engaging representations of sonic information; intimate and lyrical photographs of a relationship; documentation of the collisions between built environments and nature; poignant depictions of a family’s emotional landscape; and sound pieces developed from the structures of visual imagery and scientific data. Coursing through it all is insight, poetry, provocation and eloquence. Some of the artists are protagonists in their own work and others are barely perceptible authors. Several sought meaning and beauty at home, others in the landscape and others in the structures of visual and sonic information. Faced with such diverse individual programs of artistic inquiry, it is difficult to discern a central concern that guides all of their work. What they certainly have in common is that they have all been changed by this past year, and this has been a privilege to witness. Matthew Connors April 2011
3
SAUL BAIZMAN POST-BAC DYNAMIC MEDIA INSTITUTE
Saul Baizman is a Boston-based web and interactive multimedia specialist. His current position is Web Developer at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. This fall Saul will begin pursuing an MFA at MassArt’s Dynamic Media Institute.
http://saul.baizman.net
4
Saul Baizman Onomatopoeia project (Jaan Pehechaan Ho), animation, 2011
5
Saul Baizman Onomatopoeia project (Jaan Pehechaan Ho), animation, 2011
LESLIE CONDON POST-BAC 3D
Leslie is the first 3D student in the Massart Post Baccalaureate program. She received her degree in English from the University of New Hampshire in 2004 where she also minored in the arts. Her work often consists of the restructuring of commonplace objects and materials in attempt to redefine their literal and symbolic functions within society. She is interested in the bodily, the humorous and the playful. leslie.condon.art@gmail.com
6
Leslie Condon Surrogate to the Woman Artist, 2010
7
Leslie Condon Untitled, 2011
CATHERINE J. DAVIS POST-BAC PHOTOGRAPHY
catherinejdavis@gmail.com
8
9
MELISSA FRIEBE POST-BAC PHOTOGRAPHY
Melissa studied Art & Theatre at Gustavus Adolphus College, where she received her B.A in Studio Art. In Fall 2010 she was accepted into the Mass Art Post-Baccalaureate Program in Photography. Melissa uses a 4 x 5 camera to explore the beautiful strangeness of the human body and it’s gestures. She also works as a ballroom dance instructor. “Through an individual’s interaction with the world I delve into a perversion of the familiar, the cues and triggers of a gesture, it’s ambiguity and inference. Gestures can be strange and awkward, especially in the silent context of a photograph. I’m interested in how our body language speaks to others, tells the world something about who we are or defects certain truths about ourselves and how we feel. Which gestures are learned and which are unique; how do these moments speak to a society’s collective subconscious? I want to play with the viewer; earn a second glance, a double take, imbue the imagery with a psychological discomfort and physical tension. Ultimately it’s an individual’s own experiences that resolve the inference, implication of an image, a gesture.” melissafriebe.com melissa@melissafriebe.com
10
Melissa Friebe Pantomime 188 (Removing), Archival Inkjet Print, 17x22, 2010
11
Melissa Friebe Pantomime 208 (Hiding), Archival Inkjet Print, 17x22, 2010 Melissa Friebe Pantomime 209 (Throwing), Archival Inkjet Print, 17x22, 2010
JESS ROBSON POST-BAC PHOTOGRAPHY
Jess Robson is a photographer based in Cambridge, Ma. She received her BFA from Columbia College Chicago in 1996 and is currently finishing a one-year graduate program at MassArt. She works primarily with a large format camera, which helps her express the lyricism she perceives in the people and world around her. Through the vocabulary of blur and the grammar of texture her images strive for a timeless quality. www.jessrobson.com jessrobson@gmail.com
12
Jess Robson, Untitled, silver gelatin print, 11 x 14, 2010
13
Jess Robson Untitled, silver gelatin print, 11 x 14, 2010 Jess Robson Untitled, silver gelatin print, 11 x 14, 2010
MEGAN ROCHE POST-BAC PHOTOGRAPHY
Megan completed her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and Creative Writing at Beloit College. While working in the Post-Baccalaureate program at MassArt her work has focused on capturing the emotional resonance of a landscape at night. She will be pursuing her MFA in Photography at the University of Illinois in the Fall. http://meganroche.com megan.c.roche@gmail.com
14
Megan Roche Untitled, Inkjet Print, 2010
15
Megan Roche Untitled, Inkjet Print, 2010 Megan Roche Untitled, Inkjet Print, 2011
DANNY SCHISSLER POST-BAC PHOTOGRAPHY dschis01@gmail.com
Thanksgiving. They were fighting again this morning, Luke says. I look over at him across the vast yellow lawn and brown piles of raked leaves, three empty plastic chairs, the concrete anchors that he digs out of the ground and the disassembled skeleton of a chipped blue swing set. The air is grey, thick with the heaviness of fall. I try to remember what time it is or how long we’ve been working out here or how long I’ve been home. The last evening sun hits the siding of our house. It reminds me of a lighted stage. The porch door closes and Luke is looking away. His red hair blazes against the November cold and I start thinking that he’s almost a man now. I can’t find anything to say and I turn back to the yard work, the whole scene seeming distant. Mom calls. She sounds relieved, and tells me that my father decided to fly down to Maryland to spend Thanksgiving with his family. I walk down to the basement, to my old room and it looks the same, but with my father’s shirts and shaving kit and papers on every surface. His guitar sits in the corner and I wonder if he’s been trying to start playing again, but I pick it up and strum a chord and it’s out of tune. I stare at all his things and mine and the low fluorescent lights hum in the tiny room and I start feeling very tired. I walk back upstairs, through the rest of the house but it’s empty and I can’t recall where everyone else is. I lay down in the living room on a stiff couch with floral upholstery that matches everything else and watch it get darker outside for a little while. Somewhere far off a car passes. Laura calls and asks if I’ll drive her to the mall later to meet her friends and I ask her if Mom says it’s okay and she says yes and hangs up. Then everything is completely 16
quiet and my head is empty so I decide to sleep for a few hours.
___
The next evening, after Thanksgiving dinner, I take my camera and my car and start driving. On the radio someone is already singing about white Christmases but everything is brown and grey and smells like dead leaves and wood fires and a stab of nostalgia hits my chest. The streets are empty and whatever I’m trying to find keeps eluding me at every turn, behind vinyl siding and white trim, manicured lawns and closed shutters. It’s almost dusk as I pull into my old elementary school parking lot and my headlights sweep across a sign that says CAUTION CHILDREN as I park near an empty flagpole. Not much has changed, or at least I can’t remember enough to know what has. Paper turkeys and pilgrim hats and Indian corn hang in classroom windows. I walk around back to the edge between the schoolyard and the conservation lands where we would escape from teachers and girls and the heavy things of boyhood. The empty oak limbs creak and tremble, and I suddenly notice how freezing I am and zip up my coat. I look up and think about my siblings back at the house and how long I’ll be back for and then I walk out into the blackness of the woods.
17
Danny Schissler Sister in the Rain, Archival Inkjet Print, 17”x 22”, 2010 Danny Schissler Brother at Thanksgiving Table, Archival Inkjet Print, 17”x 22”, 2010 Danny Schissler Father in Makeshift Office, Archival Inkjet Print, 17”x 22”, 2010
AMBER VISTEIN POST-BAC STUDIO FOR INTERRELATED MEDIA
Amber Vistein graduated from New College of Florida in 2007 as a double-major in Music and Philosophy. Her work focuses on the relationship between music and non-music, often utilizing graphic scores. She attempts to create a unique sonic vocabulary by transforming the structures imbedded in visual imagery, scientific data, and narrative into the basis for sonic composition. Amber has spent the last year as a Post-Bac student in the SIM department at MassArt where she will continue her studies as an MFA student in Fall 2011. http://ambervistein.tumblr.com amber.vistein@gmail.com
18
19
CHELSEA WELSH POST-BAC PHOTOGRAPHY
Chelsea Welsh received her BFA in 2D from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Her work is an exploration of the psychology and irony of the everyday in the suburban landscape. She currently works as a residential counselor and will be pursuing her MFA in photography at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in the fall. chelsea.marie.welsh@gmail.com
20
Chelsea Welsh Orchard Street, Archival Inkjet Print, 17” x 22”, 2011
21
Chelsea Welsh Husky, Archival Inkjet Print 17” x 22”, 2010 Chelsea Welsh Curtain, Archival Inkjet Print 17” x 22”, 2010
CREDITS: Editor and Creative Director: Jenny Gibbs, Assistant Dean Of Graduate Programs Designer: Maria Anna Stangel (MFA ’12) ŠCopyright 2011 Massachusetts College of Art and Design. All rights reserved; no part of this book may be reproduced without the express written permission of the publisher