Alumni Exhibition 2015 Juliana Curran Terian Design Center Steuben Hall, Second Floor
DESIGN EXHIBITION
Please do not remove from gallery
Curator
DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
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CURATOR
SHANNON BELL-PRICE Acting Assistant Dean, Design Visiting Associate Professor, Fashion In 2007, with the help of a generous gift from Pratt Trustee and alumna Juliana Terian (B.Arch. ’90), Pratt opened the Juliana Curran Terian Design Center—a multidisciplinary complex that brings all of Pratt’s design disciplines together under one roof, enhancing the interdisciplinary collaboration and exploration that are a hallmark of a Pratt education. The Design Center comprises 150,000 square feet among two historic loft buildings joined by a modern pavilion designed by Hanrahan Myers Architects, the firm headed by Pratt School of Architecture Dean Tom Hanrahan and his partner, Victoria Meyers. Speaking at the Design Center’s opening, Terian said, “The timeless designs—and the most successful—have embodied seamless relationships between disciplines. I believe the Design Center will promote the adaptability and resourcefulness that Pratt’s students will need in a world in which the lines between disciplines are quickly fading.” To this end, the School of Design, housed in the Juliana Curran Terian Design Center, was founded in 2014. The School of Design is made up of four of Pratt’s oldest and most esteemed disciplines and includes undergraduate education in Communications Design, Fashion Design, Industrial Design, and Interior Design, as well as graduate degrees in Industrial Design, Interior Design, Communications Design, and Package Design, the latter two of which are housed in the Manhattan Campus’ landmark West Village building at 14th Street and 7th Avenue. On the first anniversary of the founding of the School of Design, we are thrilled to exhibit a selection of our illustrious design alumni.
Alumni Exhibitors
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
OLGA ANDREYEVA B.F.A. Communications Design, Illustration ’14 Olga Andreyeva is a Brooklyn-based artist who was born in Russia and lived there for the first eight years of her life. After moving to the United States, she lived in Pennington, NJ, before she attended college at Pratt Institute. Her hobbies include origami, drinking tea, camping, and traveling. Andreyeva likes meeting new people and sharing ideas and experiences. She observes as much as she can from life around her, incorporating it into her illustration. Show Statement: Illustration, for me, has always been about communicating a story or an idea. I was never very process-oriented or cared so much about what medium I’m doing something in, just what was available and easiest to get my ideas out. Throughout school, I tried almost every medium under the sun, and digital painting, for me, was something that gave me the freedom to fail, and to try again. olgaandreyeva.com xantara-world.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Flood Series: Ocean Avenue Digital 2014–15
Flood Series: Broadway Digital 2014–15
Flood Series: South Station Digital 2014–15
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
MEAGHAN BARRY B.F.A. Communications Design, Graphic Design ’10 Meaghan Barry is a designer, creative, and educator based in Detroit who splits her time between the studio and the classroom. Barry is partner and designer of Unsold Studio, a Detroit-based design agency working with clients such as Will Leather Goods, Stockyard Detroit, and Cranbrook Art Museum. Barry is also currently an Assistant Professor of Art—Graphic Design at Oakland University in Rochester, MI. Show Statement: The catalog accompanies the exhibition Bent, Cast & Forged: The Jewelry of Harry Bertoia curated by Shelley Selim for Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI). The first museum show devoted to Bertoia’s jewelry, the catalog serves as a textbook, as well as ephemera. All Michigan-made, including paper, printing, and gold foil, the materials celebrate Bertoia’s connection to the state as a high school student in Detroit, and graduate of Cranbrook Academy of Art. Featuring typography and aesthetic design of the time period, the catalog celebrates Bertoia’s early career making jewelry and monotypes before receiving international acclaim for his furniture and sculpture work. meagbarry.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Book design for Bent, Cast & Forged: The Jewelry of Harry Bertoia 8” x 10” x ½” For Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI), designed with Lilian Crum for Unsold Studio Gold foil embossing, paper, Digital printing Spring 2011
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
PHILIP BAYER B.I.D. ’12 IN COLLABORATION WITH KYLE SOLÁ B.I.D. ’10 Show Statement: Ultralight swimmer’s snorkel designed to comfortably enable a focused body alignment and static breathing position for competitive training. Designed and tested to meet the training demands of Olympic medalists and Ironman champions. kylesola.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
TYR Ultralight Training Snorkel 2012
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
JOYCE BLUM B.F.A. Interior Design ’65 Joyce Blum is the founder of the import and design company Watercolors Inc. She previously worked as a consultant to Philip Johnson for his personal renovation projects and director of the corporate interior design department at Kenneth Walker Associates. Prior to that, Blum served as director of interior design at Philip Johnson/John Burgee Architects and in various capacities at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Show Statement: After leaving as the Director of the Interior Design Department at Philip Johnson/John Burgee Architects, I worked with Philip Johnson personally, helping him with the restoration of several buildings on his New Canaan estate. We worked on the “Glass House” and the “Guest House.” We also worked on his New York City apartment. The work at the “Glass House” consisted of restoring the brick floors and interior wall finishes, refreshing some of the furniture, and installing new fixtures in the bathroom and kitchen. Some refinishing of the outside steel structure was also done. The design aesthetic was, of course, not to change a thing but only to refresh and restore the interior and exterior of this very historic building. theglasshouse.org
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
The Glass House—Front View 1981–82 Refinished steel structure, wood wall enclosures
The Glass House—Side View 1981–82 Refinished steel structure, wood wall enclosures
The Glass House—Living Room/Seating Area 1981–82 Refinished brick flooring
The Glass House—Work Area/ Philip Johnson’s Desk 1981–82 Refinished brick flooring
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
JOBE BOBEE M.I.D. ’08 Jobe Bobee is a Visiting Instructor at Pratt Institute, where he currently teaches the Three-Dimensional Design course for sophomore students in the Industrial Design Department. Bobee has worked at IMG-Mercedes Fashion Week in New York for several years, and has also worked with leather products at BBDW in Brooklyn. He has participated in various exhibitions, including the Model Citizens at the Chelsea Museum, and the Concealment and Disclosure Exhibit at the Atlantic Gallery in Chelsea, New York. jobebobee.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Wire Study 01 17” x 17”x 10” Brass candleholder 2015
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
JENNA DIMARI B.F.A. Communications Design ’09 Jenna DiMari is a New York native and art director with a love for design, photo, illustration, digital, fashion, culture, Web, type, branding, galleries, music, books, packaging, paper, and sometimes sparkles. She loves creating exciting and memorable marketing collateral for leading fashion, entertainment, and lifestyle brands. Show Statement: Jenna has had the pleasure of working with both Cake Group and Sephora on this exciting project, announcing the store opening of the Sephora at 60th Street and Lexington Avenue. jdportfolios.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Sephora Wrapped Ice Cream Truck and Branded Promotional Pieces for Cake Group Approximately 9½’ x 8½’
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
SMRITA JAIN M.S. Communications Design ’10 Smrita Jain is an artist and graphic designer whose work ranges from typographic and graphic designs, to artistic expression of her solitary life through her paintings, drawings, digital canvas prints, and last but not the least, her photography work. Jain does not restrict herself to one style of medium or type of work. Her work has been included in a solo exhibition at Pratt Manhattan Gallery and group exhibitions at the Javits Center and the Queens Museum. Show Statement: Ateem is a Hindi typeface designed by Jain during her Pratt years. She likes to explore and transform the typeface into many shapes and forms and strips out the “font” look and creates a new form every time. This series of silk screen posters are created to show the illusion to many fonts coming together to create a new and different shape while seeing through a colored piece of glass. theaquariogroup.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Colours of My Life 24” x 36” framed Mixed media
Ateem Typeface 11” x 17” (mounted, unframed) Silk screen posters
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
ISABELL JANSEN (FORMERLY SARI SUSANNA RAUTILA) B.F.A. Interior Design ’12 twenty2.net
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Forest for the Trees 48” x 52” Part of DEEP 3-D wallpaper collection with twenty2 in partnership with Pratt Institute launched at ICFF Foamcore 2015
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
MARK LANDRY B.F.A. Communications Design, Art Direction ’87 Mark Landry is a creative principal at Infinia Group, where the design for the Aspen Ideas Festival was completed. He started his career working in the studio of a well-known Pratt alumnus, Morison Cousins. Along the way, he’s been an executive creative director for FutureBrand in New York, as well as a director of interface design for Sapient. The list of clients is long and varied including IBM, Goldman Sachs, GE, GM, Nasdaq, Tupperware, and Samsung. Mark currently resides with his wife and two sons in Westfield, New Jersey. Show Statement: Each year, The Aspen Institute produces the Aspen Ideas Festival along with its partner, The Atlantic. The mission of the Festival is “to create a stimulating and invigorating convocation that links some of the foremost thinkers in the world today with civicallyminded leaders in business, the arts, politics, sciences, humanities, and philanthropy who will share ideas, raise challenging questions, and inspire thought to action.” To celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2014, the Aspen Ideas Festival wanted to develop a new identity that reflected the mission and energy of this yearly event. The digital leaf symbolizes and salutes a decade of bringing ideas together to build a more interesting world. infiniagroup.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Aspen Ideas Festival Logo Digital 2014
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
KRISTEN L’ESPÉRANCE M.S. Interior Design ’09 Kristen L’Espérance looks for opportunities to synthesize her ideas in novel ways as both a fine artist and a designer. Regardless of medium, L’Espérance sees her work as a vehicle with which she can convey a bigger idea while at the same time resolving the questions and challenges unique to each project. She believes it is rare, if not impossible, for something to be regarded as beautiful in absence of its meaning; L’Espérance maintains that the salience of this meaning drives her work as well as her relationship with the visual world. Show Statement: The projector as a formal concept: The architecture is formalized in relationship to the view. The proximity of the viewer to the view defines the scale of the picture plan. Therefore, the closer to the view, the larger the lake/view becomes. cultivationdesign.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
The Projector House at dusk 2500s/f 2011
The Projector House, South Elevation 2500s/f 2011
The Projector House, First Floor Interior 2500s/f 2011
The Projector House, Second Floor Interior 2500s/f New residential construction 2011
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
KEN LEVAN B.I.D. ’67 Ken LeVan has been designing products in the housewares, tabletop, and home furnishings industry for 50 years. He studied industrial design under Rowena Reed while at Pratt Institute. LeVan Design is a partnership of Ken LeVan and Hope LeVan. Show Statement: It’s immensely important that Hope LeVan is given co-credit for this, as she was instrumental in the concept. This product was a result of working at Corning Glass and being the design director of Corning Designs. Always using glass (a silicate), I believed that a “flexible beaker”—kind of like “bendable Pyrex”—could be made using silicone elastomer; and it would be the ultimate measuring cup, because, not only would it be easily gripped and would not require a handle, it would be heat- and cold-resistant—virtually inert (like glass); and you could squeeze it in order to make a spout. Whereby, you could pour even messy things like olive oil into small openings with complete impunity. iSi (an Austrian company) manufactured the original design (not understanding it), but others have now “knocked it off.” The ones sold by MoMA are the real deal. levandesign.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Flexible measuring cups Maximum 7” high x 4” diameter Silicone rubber 2008
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
ALI MACDONALD M.S. Package Design ’11 Ali Macdonald is a New York-based designer and the founder of LARK+RAVEN. She has an eye for bold prints and bright colors. Show Statement: Inspired by her grandmother—a brilliant, bold, and often outlandish artist—Ali Macdonald founded LARK+RAVEN in 2014 to showcase designs that gleefully toe the line between cheeky and chic. Ali uses unconventional media to create the bright, one-of-a-kind patterns and characters featured on all of her products. Here’s a hint—like the morning lark and the mischievous raven, these beautiful prints aren’t always what they seem. larknraven.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
The Big Dick Pillow 18”x 18” Screen printing on cotton canvas
Pinstripper Pillow 11”x 19” Screen printing on duck cotton canvas
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
JULIA MACK M.S. Interior Design ’90 Julia Mack is the founder of Julia Mack Design, LLC, which she began in 2006. Focusing primarily upon residential design projects in her Brooklyn neighborhood, her home-based business has since expanded to include commercial commissions throughout the tri-state area. Prior to that, she worked with several large architecture firms throughout New York City. Show Statement: Brooklyn Heights Jewelry Store: Upon entering this groundfloor C-shaped space of a Brooklyn Heights brownstone, the overwhelming impression is a tranquil mix of textural bluegray brick balanced with a dynamic swirl of gold and brass. The retail showroom is divided by a floor-to-ceiling brass screen wall which graciously parts to reveal the office with jewelry manufacturing beyond. juliamackdesign.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Brooklyn Heights Jewelry Shop 25’ x 40’ Painted brick walls, wallpaper, metal chain screen, and walnut-stained floor 2014
Boerum Hill Parlor Floor 20’ x 40’ Pine plank floors, wallpaper, and midcentury modern furniture
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
DIANE MCCAFFERTY M.S. Interior Design ’89 Diane McCafferty is an interior designer whose work bridges the gap between the traditional disciplines of architecture and interior design. She brings a unique sensitivity to her projects, carefully integrating materials and details to achieve simple, elegant, and evocative interiors. Fueled by a desire for authenticity, she often creates project-specific furniture, lighting, and accessories. She has designed private residences, corporate and institutional interiors, executive offices, and retail environments. Show Statement: While stylistic considerations may vary from project to project, Stern-McCafferty’s work reveals common themes—from the direct and expressive use of natural materials, to the commitment to inventive detailing and the use of natural light. Their work expresses clear underlying objectives: the desire to create simple, durable, and beautiful projects, the necessity for these projects to be linked to the site, and the fundamental obligation of all work to reflect human needs and aspirations. sternmccafferty.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Jilani Loft Steel-and-glass flooring system, oxidized steel stair and railings, American black walnut paneling, red birch flooring, stainless steel and glass cabinets Completed 2008
Fayerweather Street Residence Bleached and stained oak flooring, steel-and-glass doors, glass guard rails, glass wall panels, Rift Oak cabinets, glass table, stone counters, and stone fireplace hearth Completed 2013
Claremont Street Residence Steel window system, oxidized steel railings, reclaimed pine flooring, oak-and-brick structure, powder coated steel bookshelves, stainless steel fireplace surround, Venetian plaster headboard, custom lacquered and stainless steel bed, low iron tempered glass, glass mosaic tile Completed 2013
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
MICHAEL MOLFETAS B.F.A. Communications Design, Illustration ’12 Michael Molfetas began his career as the junior creative director of BluRoc Records, founded by Damon Dash (former CEO of Roc-A-Fella Records). His commercial work has since appeared in editorial publications such as HOW Design Magazine and Computer Arts. His personal work has appeared in art festivals and gallery exhibitions internationally. Show Statement: How To Be Amazing is an interview podcast hosted by comedian, author, and actor Michael Ian Black. Black sits down with some of today’s most provocative writers, entertainers, artists, innovative thinkers, and politicians for humorous, thought-provoking conversations that dive into the creative process and the intricate minds of some of the most influential voices of our time. michaelmolfetas.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
How To Be Amazing with Michael Ian Black 10” x 10” (unframed)/ 16” x 20” (framed) Logo design/illustration Colored pencil on paper, hand-drawn typography February 2015
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
NIRAL PAREKH M.S. Communications Design ’13 Niral Parekh has experience in a wide range of industries, including marketing, finance, advertising, TV production, media, and design. Parekh has an “explore and experiment” approach to his interactive and digital work, letting him look at problems and solutions differently. Show Statement: Today’s world is a digital world—a world of connected spaces and networks. However, it is surprising to see that even in today’s time we heavily rely on and use ”old school” forms of communication (letters, newspapers, etc.). And we are pleasantly surprised and appreciative of something that is created for “real”—something physical that we can touch and feel. My concept was to combine the two aspects—“old school” communications (which I collected over four to five months) and making something for ‘real’—which took the form of an installation piece I call Type of Letters. creativeamalgamist.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Type of Letters 5’ x 6’ Wood, mail, paper 2012
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
KELSY PARKHOUSE B.F.A. Fashion Design ’12 Kelsy Parkhouse is the designer behind the Brooklyn-based womenswear collection Carleen, which she founded in 2012. She draws influence from her Southern California upbringing, folk-art motifs, fine art inspiration, and commitment to domestic manufacturing. The line has enjoyed multiple mentions on vogue.com, and a pair of denim trousers from the Fall 2014 collection were modeled by Kendall Jenner in the January issue of the magazine. While at Pratt, Parkhouse was the recipient of the inaugural Liz Claiborne Concept to Product Award for her thesis collection.
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Quilt Dress Hand-quilted vintage cotton feed sacks, cotton batting, silk lining Spring 2013
Quilt Shift Vintage cotton quilt with new cotton piping Spring 2015
Port Coat (quilted) New machine-quilted cotton textile, cupro lining Fall 2015
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
SAMANTHA PLEET B.F.A. Fashion Design ’05 New York-based Samantha Pleet designs dream clothes and shoes and is known for her signature twisted tailoring and ethereal prints. The Pratt Institute alumna, along with Patrick Pleet who studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, has established a cult following with everyday dreamers and today’s icons. Her elegant, otherworldly collections have the unique purpose of making ladies look hot their way. samanthapleet.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Unicorn Dress 100% silk Fall 2015 Photo by Amanda Jas
Particle Tank, Particle Skirt 100% silk Fall 2015 Photo by Amanda Jas
Tabernacle Swimsuit 100% Lycra Resort 2015 Photo by Amber Mahoney
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
RICHARD POULIN B.I.D. ’77 As co-founder, design director, and principal of Poulin + Morris Inc., Richard Poulin has directed visual communications programs for a wide range of clients, including Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Carnegie Hall, William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, MGM Resorts, Morgan Stanley, National Portrait Gallery, The New York Public Library, NPR, and the Smithsonian Institution. His work has been published in periodicals and books worldwide, is in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress, and has received awards from American Association of Museums, American Institute of Architects (AIA), and The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), among other institutions. poulinmorris.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
BRIC Media House, Brooklyn, New York 40,000 square feet Branding, environmental graphics, donor recognition, and wayfinding sign program Completed 2014
S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse, New York 75,000 square feet Environmental graphics and donor recognition sign program Completed 2008
NPR Headquarters and Production Studios 440,000 square feet This is NPR Exhibition, Washington, D.C. Exhibition Design Completed 2013
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
GILBERTO SANTIAGO B.I.D. ’81
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Pine Arc Bookshelf 18” x 18” x 23” Wood 2013
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
ADAM SELMAN B.F.A. Fashion Design ’04 Adam Selman is a world-renowned fashion designer whose eponymous line is currently sold at several boutiques worldwide, including Brown’s of London and Opening Ceremony. Selman began his career as a costume designer on tours with the Scissor Sisters, Sufjan Stevens, Beyonce, Lorde, and most notably, Rihanna. Selman has created some of Rihanna’s most iconic looks for both stage and red carpet and served as head designer on her first clothing line. His advertising clients include Vita Coco, MAC Cosmetics, TOD’S, and Target, and his work has been featured in numerous publications, including Elle and W Magazine. adamselman.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Black shimmer knit body top black and milk bow merino wool knit cardigan dandelion gingham work jeans Autumn/Winter 2015
Black and milk bow merino wool knit polo dress Autumn/Winter 2015
Bottle green and black bow merino wool knit polo shirt with bubblegum pleated skirt and matching glove set Autumn/Winter 2015
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
PETER WACHTEL M.I.D. ’92 Peter is a kid at heart who lives and breathes toys at his company KID Toyology and lives with his family and their dog, Ginger. Show Statement: You may consider yourself a lone ranger, but even the grittiest souls need a BBQ sidekick. Grill Wrangler gives you all the functionality of a high-performance spatula, fork, and tongs. Whether you’re flipping burgers, gripping chicken legs, or spearing hot dogs, it transforms into the tool you need, when you need it. Peter Wachtel was BBQing and noticed he had an overwhelming array of tools. He fantasized about combining them to make one ultimate tool. “A Spa-tong-fork-ula?” he thought. That Spa-tong-fork-ula became what is today the Grill Wrangler. quirky.com/shop/575-Grill-Wrangler about.me/kidtoyology
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Grill Wrangler Tongs, spatula Stainless steel
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DESIGN EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
DENNIS WOLOCH B.F.A. Advertising Design ’65 Dennis Woloch has had a long and illustrious career in advertising and design. He worked for Howard Marks Advertising Inc. for 22 years, where he began as a staff artist and eventually assumed the role of vice president and creative director. He has worked with numerous high-profile clients, including KISS and Diana Ross. Prior to that, he worked at a design firm prepearing exhibits for Time-Life and EXPO ’67 The World’s Fair in Montreal. Woloch resides in Manhattan with his cat, Snappy. Show Statement: For KISS, I have designed and/or art-directed about 18 album covers—over about 15 years. I have also designed much of their merchandise and almost all of their tour books. This piece (Love Gun) features a painting by fantasy artist Ken Kelly. I was fortunate to work with some of the top talent around. I chose this album out of the many because I like the inner sleeve that I did for it.
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
KISS “Love Gun” Album Cover Digital Reproduction
Alumni Exhibition 2015 Film/Video Building Screening Room
FILM/VIDEO EXHIBITION
Please do not remove from gallery
Curators
FILM/ VIDEO EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
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CURATORS
KARA HEARN Assistant Chair, Film/Video Department Kara Hearn is an interdisciplinary video artist and assistant chair of Film/Video at Pratt Institute. She is interested in attending to the unassuming dramas and struggles that ordinary people share in order to better understand how meaning is created in a contemporary context. Her work has been shown at venues such as MoMA, SFMOMA, DiverseWorks, New Orleans Museum of Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archive, and Walker Art Center. Hearn was a fellow in the Core Program of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and has completed residencies at Recess and EFA Project Space. JORGE OLIVER Chair, Film/Video Department Jorge Oliver is the chair of Pratt’s Film/Video Department. An independent filmmaker born and raised in Puerto Rico, he is the director of Free to Love (Libres para Amar) and Pride in Puerto Rico and is the first male filmmaker in the history of Puerto-Rican cinema to openly deal with gay images. His films have been featured and honored at the Cork International Film Festival, the Havana Film Festival, the Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival, and the Festival de Viùa del Mar in Chile, among numerous others. Curatorial Statement As advances in technology have made motion media more accessible and affordable, an explosion of film/video work can be observed from artists working in different disciplines. This collection of work made by Pratt alumni of various backgrounds is an excellent reflection of this trend. It represents a range of styles, technologies, and uses for this increasingly ubiquitous and indispensable medium of artistic expression.
Alumni Exhibitors
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FILM/ VIDEO EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
RICHARD DANIELS B.F.A. Photography, Media Arts ’74 Richard Daniels is a choreographer and performer who frequently creates dances out of his experience living with HIV. He performs his own choreography and showcases the work of other choreographers, including Molissa Fenley, Peggy Baker, Barbara Mahler, Zvi Gotheiner, Eleanor King, and Christopher Gillis. He has worked as an arts manager and arts management consultant with dance companies across the United States, including the Limon Dance Company, Joyce Trisler Danscompany, Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico, Nancy Duncan’s CoDanceCo, Charlie Moulton, and Molissa Fenley. Daniels began studying dance in 1994 under modern dance teacher and performer Janie Brendel. Show Statement: Pacific Passages is danced by sisters Jodie Toogood and Melissa Toogood and is performed to an instrumental selection from Stephen Sondheim’s PACIFIC OVERTURES. Choreographed by Christopher Caines, who was the first choreographer invited to collaborate with Mr. Daniels on a movie for DANCES FOR AN iPHONE. dancesforaniphone.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Pacific Passages Running time: 4:00 minutes
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FILM/ VIDEO EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
MAKS ERLIKH Certificate ’93 behance.net/maserlikh
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
My Dreams in NY Running time: 4:32 minutes
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FILM/ VIDEO EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
ELIZABETH GOLDBERG-JOHNSON M.F.A. Painting and Graphic Arts ’81 Show Statement: My work is an exploration of the theme of the diva—the flamboyantly uninhibited female and the personal and political empowerment she represents. As a painter, graphic artist, and animator I have been inspired by puppets and absurdist theater. As subject matter, the images I am often concerned with are puppetlike characters reminiscent of Alfred Jarry’s forerunner of absurdist theater, Ubu Roi; the buffoons of modernist playwright Michel de Ghelderode; and the symbolist and political figures of European puppet theater. I have developed some of these diva and puppetinspired works into animated films requiring thousands of drawings. The process of animation has, in turn, influenced my full scale workson-paper producing diptychs, triptychs, and serial prints with progressive deviations. On a formal level, I think of myself as a colorist who is interested in the interaction between color, line, and gesture and in the complex and suggestive depiction of interior character motivation and personality through graphic means. Most of my work is on Arches, BFK, or handmade paper. A paper surface allows me the ability to explore a mixed palette of color media with a calligraphic freedom that would be inhibited on canvas. lizgoldberg.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Strings Running time: 2:59 minutes Animation by Liz Goldberg and Warren Bass
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FILM/ VIDEO EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
PARIS MAVROIDIS M.F.A. Digital Arts ’09 Paris Mavroidis is a filmmaker, artist, and programmer based in Brooklyn, NY. He currently works as a freelance 3-D artist/ programmer in New York City. parismav.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Baker & Black (2014) Running time: 2:37 minutes Visuals and music by Paris Mavroidis Jewelry created by Megan Black, Baker & Black
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FILM/ VIDEO EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
STAN RESNICOFF B.I.D. ’68 Stan Resnicoff is an experienced designer of education materials, software, and exhibits and has worked with institutions such as The Museum of Natural History, The Brooklyn Museum, The Bronx Zoo, and the Smithsonian Institution, and companies such as Mattel and Educational Insights. He is also the author of Stanley, the Seal of Approval, a children’s book published by Random House. Show Statement: Animated film based on Stan Resnicoff’s first children’s book. He offers great advice, high-fives, mellow companionship, and unconditional love. But, of course, he does. He’s Stanley, The Seal of Approval®. stanresnicoff.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Stanley, The Seal of Approval Running time: 3:46 minutes
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FILM/ VIDEO EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
CÉSAR SANTALÓ B.F.A. Drawing ’95 César Santaló is a senior designer in the Entertainment Division at Univision Network and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami and Art Institute of Pittsburgh. His collages, illustrations, and designs are part of public and private collections throughout the United States and his work has garnered wide recognition, including inclusion in Univision’s 2009 Premios Juventud and Univision’s FIFA World Cup poster for South Africa. Santaló has also designed, illustrated, and animated set video content for the Latin Grammy’s and Premio Lo Nuestro; for artists and bands such as “Calle 13,” ”Magic,” Marc Antony, Carlos Vives, and Pedro Fernandez. Show Statement: My portraits are composed of collage materials such as magazines, newspaper pictures, personal photographs, and cloth glued to wood, cardboard, and paper. I begin by laying in the dark tonalities with acrylic paint and found objects. I then place cut-out pieces from magazines which are usually the midtones and highlights of the portrait. By working from the inside out, I am never really sure how big my work will be. Pieces of glued paper surfaces are added to enlarge the canvas size. Rough and cut-out edges are typical of my work. Many of my portraits contain small cut-out pictures of historical significance, both past and present. Including these small pictures transcends the meaning of the painting as a record of events and as a time capsule. cesarsantalo.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Coney Island, Dreams for Sale Running time: 5:00 minutes This modern-day David and Goliath tale chronicles the courage and determination of a community to preserve the spirit and authenticity of a legendary American Icon and an entire way of life in the face of “Big Money” and ruthless real estate development. César Santaló created animation and logo design for the film.
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FILM/ VIDEO EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
MARK SCHIMMEL B.F.A. Communications Design, Graphic Design ’86 Mark Schimmel has been directing award-winning commercials, television, and short and feature films for the past 18 years. His work is conceptually driven and supported by images that communicate with emotion. He’s directed notable actors such as Eric Roberts, Claudia Christian, Rene Auberjonois, Bill Ratner, Lance Barber and Academy Award nominee Woody Harrelson. One of many recent accomplishments includes directing the 2014 Wrangler Blue Jean commercial campaign featuring George Strait. Early in his career, Schimmel designed movie posters for Miramax Films and worked as an artist for Walt Disney Productions. markschimmel.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Sweet Home Chicago Running time: 4:19 minutes Crystal Boxersox sings “Sweet Home Chicago” with Chicago Street Musicians Once Upon a Time Films
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FILM/ VIDEO EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
KELSEY ROSE STARK B.F.A. Film, Animation ’10 Rose Stark was born as Kelsey Rose Stark. She is known for her work on LGFUAD (2010), Heila Ormur (2014), and The Honor Code (2012). Show Statement A man, infected, runs for his life. rosestark.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Heila Ormur Running time: 3:45 minutes
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FILM/ VIDEO EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
MICKALENE THOMAS B.F.A. Painting ’00 New York-based artist Mickalene Thomas is best known for her elaborate paintings composed of rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel. Thomas introduces a complex vision of what it means to be a woman and expands common definitions of beauty. Her work stems from her long study of art history and the classical genres of portraiture, landscape, and still life. Inspired by various sources that range from the 19th-century Hudson River School to Edouard Manet, Henri Matisse, and Romare Bearden, she continues to explore notions of beauty from a contemporary perspective infused with more recent influences of popular culture and pop art. Show Statement Painter Mickalene Thomas profiles the life of her mother/artistic muse, Sandra Bush. Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman was conceived and directed by Mickalene Thomas and produced by Tanya Selvaratnam; executive producers, the Lehmann Maupin Gallery, Mickalene Thomas and Lisa CortÊs; distribution consultant, Sarah Lash; cinematographers, Shane Sigler and Omar Mullick; editor, Alex Meillier; music by Thomas M. Lauderdale. mickalenethomas.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman Running time: 23:07 minutes
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FILM/ VIDEO EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
WILLIAM WESTLEY B.F.A. Painting ’04 William “Billy” Westley is a San Francisco–based photographer and artist. Prior to moving to San Francisco, he worked as the executive assistant to a contemporary carpet and textile manufacturer in New York City. He is originally from Michigan. Show Statement: In 1997, at age 15, William Westley and his friend Kim decided to make a documentary. They wanted to record this important time in their lives, even though nothing exciting ever happened in Sterling Heights, MI. They videotaped for more than three years, essentially cataloging their entire high school experience. But when school ended and they went their separate ways, the tapes ended up in boxes gathering dust. The documentary never got to see the light of day. Eighteen years later, he decided to revisit this footage and find out just what was on the videotapes. polaroidsf.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Normal Running time: 5:36 minutes
Alumni Exhibition 2015 Steuben Hall Galleries Main Floor, Room 207
FINE ARTS EXHIBITION
Please do not remove from gallery
Curator
FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
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CURATOR
CAROLINE TAYLOR B.F.A. Painting and Art History ’09 Caroline Taylor is an independent curator and private art adviser based in New York and Alabama. With a focus on postwar and contemporary art, Caroline has organized exhibitions internationally. Caroline received her B.F.A. in Painting and Art History from Pratt Institute. She spent four years as curatorial associate at the Deutsche Bank Collection, based in New York City. Prior to Deutsche Bank, Caroline held experience at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Exhibition Design department), Phillips Auction House (Contemporary Art department), and the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation. Curatorial Statement: The six artists included in this exhibition represent the tradition of abstract painting embedded in the culture of Pratt Institute. Working in the vein of notable alumni such as Ellsworth Kelly and Pat Steir, the visual vocabulary developed by each artist confronts the formal elements of color. Spanning four decades of alumni, the exhibition proves an ongoing dialogue with abstraction.
Alumni Exhibitors
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
FELIX AARTS M.F.A. Painting ’13 Felix Aarts is a native of the Netherlands and studied both dance and painting in The Hague and Oslo before coming to Pratt. His work has been exhibited in the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, and the United States. His experience also includes set design, chorography, and curatorial work. Show Statement: All three pieces selected for the exhibition came from a solo residency at the Leon Adriaans Foundation (LAF). They were exhibited at the solo exhibition “2Zijdig” at the LAF in September 2014. In 2014, I was invited by the LAF to spend a month at the Leon Adriaans Artist in Residency (LAAR) in St.Michielsgestel, the Netherlands, to create new work. The LAAR is located in the former chicken coop on the “Sterrenbos” farm, the preserved home and work space of Dutch artist Leon Adriaans (1944–2004). It was my first time creating and showing my work intensively in my country of birth, the Netherlands. I have spent most of my adult life in urban settings, living and creating in Berlin, Oslo, and New York City. While at the LAAR I searched for ways to combine my urban, colorful, and abstract aesthetic with the rural setting of the countryside and farm of 20th-century painter Leon Adriaans. This resulted in three-dimensional paintings combining industrial and agricultural inspired elements as well as two-dimensional studies. The exhibition 2Zijdig (meaning two-sided) was curated in the former cow stable located in the middle of the farm that separated the live and workspace of Adriaans. This rustic space created an additional contrast to the bright paintings and continues my exploration of how paintings and their surrounding inform each other. felixaarts.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Wedding dress and mourning cloth in theory 2” x 13³ ⁴” x 9⁷ ⁸”, hung approximately 3” apart Acrylic on canvas 2014
A bridal gown is sometimes lined with mourning cloth 4” x approx 50” x 27” Acrylic on unprimed canvas, transparent vinyl and hardware 2014
Cleansing the Augean stables 2” x 61” x 19¾” Acrylic on unprimed canvas, wheels 2014
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
MARIO NAVES M.F.A. Painting ’87 Mario Naves teaches at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn College, and Hofstra University. He has received awards and grants from The National Endowment for the Arts, The E.D. Foundation, The Sugarman Foundation, The National Academy of Design, Brooklyn College, and The Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Naves’s paintings and works-on-paper are represented by the Elizabeth Harris Gallery in Chelsea and have been covered by The New York Times, The New Criterion, The New York Sun, The Village Voice, ArtNet, and other publications. Naves’s criticism has appeared in The New York Observer, Slate, The New Criterion, New Art Examiner, The Wall Street Journal, and City Arts. Show Statement: Each of my paintings is arrived at through the layering of shapes, lines, and colors. Pictorial relationships, once stated, are subsequently altered, negated, tweaked, and redefined. Flux is an inherent component of my process—the paintings are worked on for weeks and sometimes months. The resulting pieces are simultaneously clarified and open-ended, earnestly felt and welcoming of caprice. They evince my ongoing dialogue with world art, not least Indian and Persian miniatures, 16th-century Netherlandish painting, and early 20th-century comic strips. Mnaves.wordpress.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Eden 16” x 16” Acrylic on panel 2015
Sunny Day Hotsy Totsy 16” x 20” Acrylic on panel 2015
Sanctuary 24” x 30” Acrylic on panel 2015
Dog Run 16” x 20” Acrylic on panel 2015
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
BETH SHIPLEY M.F.A. Painting ’97 Beth Shipley is a visual artist who works primarily in the mediums of painting and drawing. Her work has been exhibited extensively, including recent shows at Soho20 Gallery, Central Features, Islip Art Museum, Painting Center, Riggs and Leidy Galleries (MICA), Andrea Meislin Gallery, Geoffrey Young Gallery, and the Solar Grandjean Montigny in Brazil. She has received artist grants from the City University of New York and Change, Inc. and residency fellowships from the Jentel Foundation, Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Virginia Center of the Creative Arts, and Klots International Foundation (MICA), among others. Shipley is an assistant professor at Marymount Manhattan College. Show Statement: All of the pieces are grounded in the language of abstraction with an emphasis on activating the dynamics of visual movement and rhythm. My primary intention was to locate the concrete means to track the unfolding of time. In practice, this involved taking a methodical approach to the process of image making. Layers of linear formations were sequentially laid down, one on top of the other. Each accruing layer destabilized the existent image, causing shifts in the spatial relationships, color interactions, and figure ground dynamics: what was whole became fragmented, backgrounds were converted into new forms, and fields of color were activated with light. Incrementally, layer-by-layer, the images evolved into a complex system of pattern and disruption. Although each piece developed its own internal logic, all the works were driven by a set of simple, albeit paradoxical principles: locate order in the chaotic, the complete in the partial, and stasis amidst perpetual momentum. beth-shipley.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Flash Flood I, Lower Piney Creek 20” x 20” Oil on linen 2015
Flash Flood II, Lower Piney Creek 20” x 24” Oil on linen 2015
Provisional Sequence: Absence 14” x 18” Gouache 2014
Rhythm Sequence: Circular 14” x 18” Gouache on paper 2014
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
NICHOLAS VAN ZANTEN B.F.A. Painting ’11 Nick Van Zanten is currently pursuing his M.F.A. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has been awarded residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Wassaic Project, and has shown throughout the eastern United States, including at Martos Gallery and Shoot the Lobster in New York, at Fjord in Philadelphia, and at the Creative Alliance in Baltimore. His work has been reviewed online and in Art in America. Show Statement: I am drawn to contradiction and to the interaction of opposing forces. My work aims to create opposition between appearance and reality and to complicate the relationship between form and content. I derive formal elements from my materials and conversely choose materials that refer, in unexpected and ironic ways, to formalist abstraction. In my paintings, I am to make definitively flat materials, such as a stretched canvas or rigid oriented strand board, appear to have depth while also seeking to simultaneously draw from the material pattern and chaos. nickvanzanten.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
(CMYK) Of/On OSB 16” x 27” Oil on oriented strand board 2014
OSB 14 II Redux 28” x 28” Oil on canvas 2015
Canvas 10 (Ad Nausea) 26” x 42” Oil on canvas 2015
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
PATRICIA ZARATE M.F.A. Painting ’98 Patricia Zarate is a Colombian-born visual artist whose work has been exhibited in the United States and internationally in Croatia, Colombia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and Thailand. In 2004 she was the recipient of an Individual Artist Support Grant from the Queens Council on the Arts. Her work has been reviewed in ArtNexus, ARTNews, Newsday, and the Philadelphia Weekly. She currently lives and works in New York City. Show Statement: Early spring I drove east to see the ocean, to feel the cool breeze on my face to smell the sea. Clear blue sky. It’s high tide the waves come in and out. I’m lost in the rhythm. Cold beginning to set in; toes and fingers getting numb. Time to go. Dark by the time I reach the car. It’s a slow drive back with lots of darting red lights. Creating work is a process that is fueled by my experiences; images are conjured from observation, memory, visuals, words, music, the list goes on and on. Presently, color, pattern, and light have preoccupied me, how placement and relationship affect our perception. Working in a variety of media including painting, drawing, and photography, I use minimal and conceptual approaches, such as pairing, seriality, pattern, repetition, and uniformity to construct my images. patriciazarate.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Story of Pink & Green 8” diameter each Acrylic on wood 2012
It Feels Good 48” x 11½” x ½” Acrylic on wood 2011
Reversal (yellow-crimson) 6” x 17” Acrylic and mirror styrene 2013
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JIM ZINGARELLI B.F.A. Communications Design, Illustration ’75 Jim Zingarelli is a painter and sculptor who has been teaching art for 35 years . He is currently a professor of art at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, and has previously taught at Austria’s Salzburg Institute, The Orvieto Semester in Italy, and The Carving Studio & Sculpture Center in West Rutland, Vermont. His work has been exhibited at Dartmouth College, Yale University, Vorpal Gallery, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Attleboro Museum, and the Pepper Gallery. Zingarelli’s work is currently represented by Andrea Marquit Fine Arts, Boston. He resides and works in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Show Statement: This new body of work finds its inspiration in chord structures, tonal color, dynamics (pace), and rhythmic punctuation. One navigates through an infrastructure of metronomic delineations by way of tempo, chord shapes, and color. You hear/see a directive of expressive points: here, silence, there, pause, now, back, next. Using the syncopated beat found in jazz, the line engages in twists and loops that settle into a referent tempo offered by formal reference to blocks of chord harmonies emphasizing departure, resolution, and recapitulation. jimzingarelli.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Chord & Color #1 42” x 16” Oil, graphite, and galkyd on linen over panel 2015
Chord & Color #2 42” x 16” Oil, graphite, and galkyd on linen over panel 2015
Chord & Color #4 42” x 16” Oil, graphite, and galkyd on linen over panel 2015
Alumni Exhibition 2015 Steuben Hall Galleries Main Floor, Room 207
FINE ARTS EXHIBITION
Please do not remove from gallery
Curator
FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
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CURATOR
KELLY WORMAN Kelly Worman is an artist and curator based out of New York and London. She holds an M.F.A. from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and just completed the M.A. in Culture, Criticism, and Curation at Central Saint Martins in London, with distinction. She has exhibited her work internationally. Kelly is also the founder of the Studio Spoken project, interviewing artists about their studio practice, and the director of The Art Mint, a curated online gallery selling affordable art from artists whose work she admires. Curatorial Statement: Cultural theorist Mieke Bal describes cultural memory as a signifier that “memory can be understood as a cultural phenomenon, as well as an individual or social one.� As cultural memory happens in the present, all around us, at all times, it is constantly shifting and reshaping itself, linking the now to the then, while influencing the future. Cultural memory, heritage, and nostalgia are explored in this exhibition. The artists chosen for this exhibition are from different generations, different disciplines, and of different cultural descent, yet they share the commonality of spending formative years in building their artistic practice at Pratt, while contributing to Pratt’s collective identity. Through this work, we get a glimpse of relatable imagery (frequently nodding to Americana), sometimes dredging up discomfort while other times giving us a case of the warm-and-fuzzies, yet resonating with a familiarity, naturally and poignantly identifying within each of us.
Alumni Exhibitors
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PAULA ABREU PITA M.F.A. Photography ’13 Paula Abreu Pita was born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1984. She had her first solo show “Peças da Madeira” in July 2010 and her second show “Entre Águas de Portugal” in Caracas in 2011. In 2013, she had her first solo show at Pratt Institute, “Buena Vista 504.” Abreu Pita has also exhibited in New York City at Photoville 2014, First Street Gallery, Rush Arts Gallery, and The Greenpoint Gallery, in France at the Louvre’s “Exposure Awards” 2015, and in London as part of the Getty Gallery’s “Renaissance Photography Prize.” She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Show Statement: Hotel Monte Rosa is a series of photographs of a hotel located in downtown Madeira, Portugal, that was once owned and managed by my grandfather. The small four-story building operated for 50 years, accommodating tourists that wanted to stay at the heart of the island. Monte Rosa was a place full of life, with people roaming the hallways and sleeping in temporary beds. Unfortunately, in 2008, it had to close down as the economy collapsed. It became harder to compete with large hotel chains. Moreover, my grandfather´s health started to deteriorate and he had to move to Venezuela to be near his family. These photographs resonate with the silence of lonely, void spaces, consumed by the passage of time. The soul of this place departed with its last occupants and its owner, who had lived in the hotel and dedicated his life to its success. The rooms are now occupied only by the trace of human presence. Hotel Monte Rosa is a reminder of the impact of globalization, which can lead to the decay of traditional small businesses. But above all, it is a refuge to memories. It represents the end of a chapter in my family history, marked by the loss of its patriarch and the detachment of its heirs. paulaabreupita.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Room 404, from the series Hotel Monte Rosa 24” x 30” Photography, inkjet print 2013
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POLINA BARSKAYA M.F.A. Painting and Drawing ’10 Polina Barskaya was born in Cherkassy, Ukraine, 1984 and currently lives and works on Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been in group and solo exhibitions in New York City and New Jersey, most recently at Novella Gallery and Honey Ramka. Barskaya has also guest lectured at Sarah Lawrence, Kent Place School, and Hunter College. Show Statement: These are paintings of predigital photos of my family and their friends’ party at a Russian nightclub after immigrating to America. polinabarskaya.tumblr.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Rasputin Birthday Party 16” x 20” Acrylic on panel 2010
Clubbing 10” x 14”
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
JONATHAN BLAUSTEIN M.F.A. Photography ’04 Jonathan Blaustein is an artist, writer, and educator based in Taos, New Mexico. He has exhibited his work widely in galleries and museums across the United States, as well as festivals in Europe. His photographs reside in several permanent collections, including the Library of Congress, the State of New Mexico, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Jonathan writes about photography for A Photo Editor and The New York Times Lens blog and is chair of the Fine Arts Department at the University of New Mexico-Taos. He is also editor in chief of the new online photo magazine Photographer’s Quarterly. Show Statement: One dollar’s worth of double cheeseburger from McDonalds is perhaps the seminal image from Jonathan Blaustein’s internationally recognized project, The Value of a Dollar, from 2008. For the series, Jonathan went shopping in his local markets and restaurants of northern New Mexico, in search of food items to photograph. He then took them back to his studio, measured out one dollar’s worth of each product, and shot them without any retouching, styling, or artificial light. His goal was to present food as a commodity often manipulated by advertising imagery, and a symbol of many interconnected issues related to globalization, wealth, health, and class in the 21st century. jonathanblaustein.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
one dollar’s worth of double cheeseburger from McDonald’s 17” x 22” framed Archival pigment print mounted to aluminum, laminated, and framed 2008/13
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
STEVEN BLEICHER B.F.A. ’77, M.F.A. ’79 Steven Bleicher is currently associate dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts and a tenured professor in Visual Arts at Coastal Carolina University. He has previously served as assistant dean of the School of Art and Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology and taught at institutions such as the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale and Brooklyn College. He has authored Contemporary Color: Theory and Use and the forthcoming Fundamentals, The Foundations of Art and Design. Bleicher is also a widely sought-after lecturer and color specialist, and has collaborated with high profile artists such as Jennifer Wen Ma. Show Statement: Route 66 is not just a place; it is a state of mind. My artwork has always dealt with the theme of Americana and the open road, specifically the great old highways, such as Route 66. As the first trans highway, it was developed to link the Midwest with the West Coast. It was begun early in the century to improve road conditions for farmers to transport their products to market and for an emerging auto tourism industry. It was the main highway for the great Dustbowl migration of the 1920s, becoming known as “the Mother Road.” These old roads are celebrations of the American zeal for exploration, expansion, and travel. This body of work is about being on the move. The western migration is at the heart and soul of our American psyche, culture, and history. It is influenced by the iconic southwestern landscape and the roadside attractions both past and present. I regularly return to cruise the highway. In this way, I have also become part of the road‘s nomadic residents. Photorealistic graphite renderings are developed from site sketches and photographs, which are evocative of the sense of place and of the local industry. The images are combined with maps, a metaphor for the journey, and found objects from the area. Some of the maps used in the series are traditional street maps while others are star charts. The multidimensional elements form a complex layer with the rendered images. Within a discreet, unified space they provide an editorial or narrative component and are a means to engage the viewer. apojigo.com/stevenbleicher
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Wig-Wam Motel 11” x 14” x 3” Graphite and mixed media 2013
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SEAN CARROLL M.F.A. Photography ’06 Sean Carroll is an artist working in photography and video raised in coastal Massachusetts, now based in New York City. His works have been shown in exhibitions in New York, Detroit, Washington, DC, northern Virginia, and North Carolina, including most recently at Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art. His photos have been featured by PDN, Fraction Magazine, Ain’t Bad, and Lint Roller. Show Statement: Parklife For some years, I have been spending more of my leisure time visiting and documenting federal and state park and forest land, places in America where the public is allowed and encouraged to visit the “wilderness.” Since my family never really went on the traditional cross-country car trip when I was a kid, I’ve been making various journeys to some of the places I missed; the places, near and far, that I used to spot in my father’s tattered road atlas. As an adult, my nostalgic interest in exploring parks and forests has evolved into a fascination with the quirky way that Americans vacation in nature. The parks, which obviously set aside dramatic natural wonders for our enjoyment, also generally include modern conveniences like benches for rest, restrooms, concession stands, campgrounds, marinas, and hotels. While there as visitors, we walk along specially marked paths through the wilderness and snap photos from designated vista points. Life in public parks is a curious arrangement of government workers, generic signage, busy parking lots, sunburned kids, and frustrated parents. As I’ve been participating in this rite of American vacationing, I’ve become amused and enamored by how we interact with the wild and the infrastructure we put in place to do so. Parklife aims to capture it in all of its oddity. seancarrollphotographs.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
River Swimmers, Yellowstone National Park, WY 20” x 20” framed Archival inkjet print 2010
Snack Bar, Robert Moses State Park, NY 20” x 20” framed Archival inkjet print 2013
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VINCENT COLABELLA B.F.A. Photography ’77 Vincent Colabella is a photographer with more than 35 years of experience and is the author of two books Creative Approaches to Photographing People and Hodge Podge. Aside from his art photography, Vincent works as a teacher and a commercial photographer. Show Statement: Documenting spaces where people have been through and left a mark in some way. Mankind forever changes the nuances of the landscape. Even the most remote parts of the world today have seen someone through them. Gone are the days of discovery of new lands, untouched environments. Not to lament the passing but to make sense of what has been created or left behind is the goal. Seeing the detailed beauty or necessity of what is there. Celebrating how we have all made a mark and to make sense of these small to large touches. Not making judgment on the altered spaces, taking notice, and showing how in their own right their importance is. To feel the space to treat it as an experience whether it is simple or complicated. Objects that make up space portraying cultural and social interpretations upon the area and with no judgment upon them. It is these objects or groomings that make up the spaces we see, and without them there is no “open landscape.” vincentcolabella.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Long Beach Island 16” x 20” matted Photograph/Archival
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ANDREW DAVIDSON B.F.A. Film, Media Arts ’92 Andrew “Under” Davidson has worked as a lifeguard, salesforce multimedia programmer, graphic designer, DJ, club/rave promoter, full-stack Web developer, mobile app developer, and boss to one part-time employee. Davidson is the founder of Under Design, a firm that has provided graphic design services and now offers consumer digital conversion services. In lieu of earning a buck, he makes art for his own pleasure and plots his next career move while trying to avoid the deluge of modern distractions. Show Statement: In Case Of...is a series of 25 (and growing...) multimedia installations to deal with just about every emergency one might encounter in your life (real or imagined). Inspired by the glass-enclosed fire extinguisher cases of yesteryear, this ever-growing collection is designed and produced to simply bring to life the nagging “what if…” that haunts all those who question what they truly might need in an emergency. The overwhelming selection of instantly available answers to not-so-everyday questions becomes less a mixed media installation and more a poke at modern society and our true fears. Created and made by Philadelphia-based artist Andrew Davidson, more photos and information about the entire collection and new units can be found on his website: undr.com/about/incaseof
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
In Case of Campfire Break Glass 24” x 12” x 4½” S’more’s ingredients (marshmallows, chocolate bar, graham crackers), whittled stick, pine wood, Plexiglas, vinyl lettering, tiny hatchet, chain, red paint, assorted hardware 2013
In Case of Rapture Break Glass 13” x 11” x 4” Assorted miniature religious texts, pine wood, Plexiglas, vinyl lettering, tiny hammer, chain, red paint, assorted hardware 2014
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
ANTHONY HEINZ MAY M.F.A. Painting and Drawing ’11 As a native West Coast Oregonian and emerging New York artist, May aims to expose technological chicanery and promote eco-pedagogy/eco-psychology, resignifying human relationships with nature and natural processes. Show Statement: Nature is governed by the same physical rules that govern human existence: everything falls apart. In the natural cycles, this entropic chaos provides that nothing is obsolete and that everything has equal place. In opposition of systemic natural balance are the inverted fragmentations of human existence, where dehumanization at its tragic core dismisses nature but as a simultaneous threat and resource for human indulgence. anthonyheinzmay.wix.com/art
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Abject Ablution 48” x 12” x 12” Sycamore branch, plastic grocery bags, concrete, steel, paint, glue 2014
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NEIL H. KELLER B.F.A. Advertising Design and Visual Communication ’65 Neil Keller is a New York-based photographer. He has worked as a designer and art director for numerous Manhattan design firms and corporate art departments. He also cofounded his own design firm and a Web business that develops proprietary software to power college career services departments. When he is not working, he spends time travelling with his wife pursuing fine art photography. Show Statement: Bryce Canyon National Park contains an extraordinary concentration of hoodoos—odd-shaped eroded rock pillars forming a huge amphitheater. Weather was highly variable during our April visit— rain, hail, snow, and sun were experienced randomly throughout the day. As I approached one spectacular viewpoint, I saw a perfect moment of light, shadow, scenery, and park visitors. Raising my camera to my eye, I was able to grab just two photographs before the moment dissolved. In recent years, I’ve been fortunate to able to devote more time rekindling an old love—landscape photography. Living in New York, there’s the urban landscape, of course. But in particular, I savor the wild places less touched by human intervention; revisiting a number of America’s great national parks I haven’t seen in many years, and exploring them with fresh eyes. I suspect that much success lies with serendipity.When rushing over a rise to catch the interaction of quickly changing light and weather at a spectacular Bryce Canyon viewpoint, the scene opening before me was a surprise. I stopped in my tracks, grabbed two shots, and watched as the moment then faded away. neilkellerphotography.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Bryce Canyon Tourists No. 1 19¾” x 13” excluding mount and frame Archivally mounted and framed digital color print Nikon D7000 with Nikon 18~200 mm zoom and polarizer (@ 50 mm, 1/125 sec, f9); raw format, processed in Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 Lab print by Duggal, NYC 2015
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MARTIN LANDAU B.F.A. Painting ’84 Martin Landau has shown his work in galleries throughout the mid-Atlantic states. His work is included in numerous public and private collections. Show Statement: I live on a busy highway. I paint what I see. What distinguishes meaning from meaningless? I often confuse the two. Most anything is worth contemplating. Even a cardboard box. martinlandau.net
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Party Fair 37½” x 31½” Oil on canvas in enamelpainted wood frame 2013
Gray Lot 26” x 32” Oil on canvas 2014
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ROXI MARSEN M.F.A. Painting ’81 Roxi Marsen is a Brooklyn-based artist who currently constructs assemblages with found metal objects. Influenced by many years of painting and a love for outsider art, this intuitive assembling is playful and serious. Marsen’s work has been included extensively in solo and group exhibitions in and around NYC and she has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the MacDowell Colony. Show Statement: My assemblage work evolved after a recent visit to Provincetown. In 1981–82, I spent a winter there as a fellow at the Fine Arts Works Center and gave myself permission to be an artist. Painting was so serious, and to take a break I would hike with my dog through the dunes to the ocean. Randomly, I collected natural materials and discarded debris. In my studio during downtime, I would play with these elements, creating personal and whimsical objects. This strong connection of a long ago experience led me to this new work. I scan my urban environment like a beachcomber. Basements of aging hardware, secondhand shops, cast offs left on stoops for repurposing, and street debris supply me with the materials and inspiration to create these metal assemblages. Seated Air Vent is a moment of unrelated objects that suddenly fit together. Their story is composed of a torso-like object that happens to be a radiator air vent topped by a doorknob, appearing in a seated position on an unidentified twisted hunk of metal. The connection between these elements gives the viewer a mystery to be unraveled. I especially like the way the metals mesh in color and texture. roximarsen.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Seated Air Vent 7” x 5” x 2” Assemblage; Found metal, epoxy 2014 Photo credit: Roxi Marsen
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
REBECCA MORGAN M.F.A. Painting and Drawing ’09 Rebecca Morgan’s work has been highlighted in Time Out New York, ARTnews, Whitehot Magazine, Beautiful Decay, Artslant, Juxtapoz Magazine, and Berlin’s Lodown Magazine, among others. She is the recipient of a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, a Vermont Studio Center full fellowship, and the George Rickey Residency at Yaddo. Exhibitions include shows at Gasser Grunert Gallery, NY; Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ; Whitdel Arts, Detroit, MI; Coop Gallery, Nashville, TN; and Spring/Break, New York, NY. Show Statement: Rebecca Morgan is from central Pennsylvania, and her paintings, drawings, and ceramics emanate from stereotypes of rural Appalachia. Humorous, benevolent, and savage at turns, her characters touch on truths about poverty, addiction, and off-the-grid living, as well as idealizations of uncultured country life. Stylistically, Morgan embraces hyper-detailed naturalism, influenced by Dutch painters such as Memling, Brueghel, and Van Eyck, as well as absurd, repulsive caricature suggestive of underground cartoonists like R. Crumb. As an on-and-off-again New Yorker, Morgan represents the ultimate insider/outsider point-of view, embracing and critically distancing herself from her origins.
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Odalisque 65” x 94” Graphite on paper 2014
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WILLIAM MOREE B.F.A. Photography, Media Arts ’85 William Moree photographs real people on location for advertising, corporate, political, and editorial clients worldwide. He has received numerous accolades for his work, including Lucie Awards, Addy Awards, and recognitions from Communications Arts Magazine and the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington. williammoree.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Couch. Missouri. 13” x 19” images area Photographs, presented as framed giclée pigment prints 2002–15
Barbara. Mahwah, New Jersey. 13” x 19” images area Photographs, presented as framed giclée pigment prints 2002–15
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JESSICA PERELMAN B.F.A. Drawing ’14 Jessica Perelman’s work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in New York City and Portland, Oregon, and she has held two solo shows to date. jessica-perelman.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Square Looks/Whole Team souvenir plates Dimensions variable (each plate approximately 8-10�) Glazed porcelain 2015
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VALERY RIZZO B.F.A. Communications Design, Illustration ’88 Valery Rizzo is a Brooklyn-based portrait, food and lifestyle photographer with a passion for telling stories. Her work appears in print, on the Web, and around the globe. She has shown at Soho Photo, The powerHouse Arena, MTA Arts for Transit, Photoville, Ripe Art Gallery, The Burn Gallery, The Edward Carter Gallery, The Atlantic Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art, Thomas Werner Gallery, and The AOP in London. Prior to becoming a photographer, Rizzo worked as an illustrator, designer, and art director for clients such as Ralph Lauren Home Design, Liz Claiborne, Bill Blass, Marks and Spencer, and Williams Sonoma. Show Statement: The Polar Bear Swim is one of those classic events that have become a Brooklyn tradition. In the beginning when it was smaller, it was less organized and more chaotic, which I loved. Here a group of friends are trying to keep warm while they wait their turn to make the run to the frigid ocean. valeryrizzo.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Warm Up, Polar Bear Swim, Coney Island 11” x 11” chromogenic print, framed at 18” x 21” 2013
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MARIKA ROBAK M.F.A. Photography ’13 Marika Robak was born in Harris, New York, in 1987. Her photography is created in the documentary style, sometimes with a conceptual slant. Intrigued by the power of storytelling, she often works in series, binding unique images into subtle, yet rich narratives. Marika currently lives and works in the New York City area. Show Statement: The Pioneers (photographic series) Every year, Christmas affords me the opportunity to explore the traditions I associate with my Ukrainian American ethnic heritage. On Christmas Eve, my immediate family spends time together, preparing and enjoying the customary Ukrainian 12-course dinner. This festivity has become more of a secular ritual rather than a rite, as the religious aspects of our celebration have diminished since the passing of my Ukrainian Catholic grandparents. Because we celebrate Christmas Day in jubilant, American fashion, replete with presents under the tree, our holiday is an amalgam of Ukrainian and American cultures. We spend the day with our friends, the Martynetz family, who share our Ukrainian-American background, conversing over a turkey dinner and playing board games. For this ongoing project, I like to shoot loose and fast with a digital camera, recording both still images and video. This allows me to exploit the aesthetics of the snapshot and home movies in my effort to capture unexpected, intimate, sometimes discomfiting moments. The title for this project originates in a poem by the famous Ukrainian poet, Ivan Franko. Its title has been translated as “The Pioneers,” by Percival Cundy, and might also be interpreted as “The Stonecutters” or “The Quarrymen.” Every Christmas, my father reads a selection of Ukrainian poems and carols from a book that once belonged to my grandparents. In 2012, he read “The Pioneers” to me and my brother for the first time. He revealed that it had been my grandmother’s favorite poem. marikarobak.tumblr.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
All the Men, Christmas Day 11” x 14” Archival inkjet print 2013
Trivial Pursuit (Bah Humbug!) 11” x 14” Archival inkjet print 2014
Alumni Exhibition 2015 DeKalb Gallery
FINE ARTS EXHIBITION
Please do not remove from gallery
Curator
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CURATOR
SUSAN LUSS B.F.A. Studio Arts, Painting ’13 Susan Luss has lived in New York since 1983, during which time she had a professional career in sales and marketing. After leaving the field to pursue painting, she has participated in exhibitions such as Haverstraw RiverArts Festival, So Hot Right Now, Last Dance @the Old Gem, Light Industrial Ecosystem, and Nation III/ Circle the Wagons. Luss curated a group exhibition in conjunction with Pratt and MARP’s collaboration Drawings Along Myrtle Ave in 2014. She is affiliated with artist run group ArtShape Mammoth and Brooklyn Art Crit Group. Curatorial Statement: “Pluralism in art refers to the nature of art forms and artists as diverse. The cultural context of art is all encompassing in its respect for the art of the world’s cultures. Inclusion of individuals of differing ethnicities, genders, ideologies, abilities, ages, religions, economic status, and educational levels is valued. Pluralism honors differences within and between equitable groups while seeing their commonalities.” Defined by NAB (New Art Basics, Department of Art and Design, Iowa State University) At its core, pluralism in art celebrates inclusion, the diverse quality of people’s experience, as well as their perceptions of those experiences. The 14 Pratt alumni selected for this exhibition are as generationally diverse as are the media they work with. Fundamentally, these artists are concerned with relationships, the qualities of those relationships, and how one's individual perceptions can shape their experience of those relationships. Each work provides a place (space) that might evoke in the viewer some awareness of his or her relationship not only to self, but also to that of others. A shared experience of being here at this moment, looking at this work while potentially connecting to a larger community beyond the work; to a place that connects us all, one to the other. Collectively, these artworks exist within the structure of this place and time, yet they go beyond those structures. They transcend the verities of time and culture. They celebrate the diversity of humans in the physical world; to be deep rooted, encompassing something larger than each of us individually. While the artists participating in this exhibition may not have been thinking of ideas surrounding pluralism in art when creating their work, what resulted is art that is diverse, engaging, and inclusive. These works are at once timeless and timely.
Alumni Exhibitors
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MARGARET COLEMAN M.F.A. New Forms of Art ’09 Margaret Coleman is executive director of ArtShape Mammoth and curates exhibitions at art venues around the country. She has received grants and awards for her work from Jerome Foundation, Awesome Without Borders, Pollination Project, and Michigan Department of Economic Development. In 2014 she traveled to Latvia and installed an exhibition as part of the International Conference on Cast Iron Art. Every summer she goes to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where she has built a cabin and started a Sustainable Adventure Art Symposium. She is currently working on facilitating an artist exchange with the island of Hiiumaa in Estonia. Show Statement: Summer 2013, I drove from Brooklyn to Minnesota in my uncle’s SUV, staring at the back of the same semi truck for hours on the Ohio Turnpike, picking up beef jerky and coffee at rest stops. My brother left a four-foot florescent pink carnival bear stuffed with packing peanuts in the backseat as a cross-country travel companion. I pitched my tent at Franconia Sculpture Park. They have cornfields filled with giant sculptures, the kind that need a crane to install. The kind that you stare at and feel in your gut, knowing that if you just stay there, what you make, and maybe even you, yourself from being in that place and seeing those forms, will change. You can feel them. Houses suspended midair. Sculptures you can walk up, tracing the skin, pressing your check, crawling inside. Earth raised, an exploration of the possible. I lived outside for two weeks with nine other artists chosen to participate in the annual iron casting residency. I worked outside, dismantling the bear, (I believe in using what you have) transfiguring its body into my 400-pound Lump, currently on view at the sculpture park. The legs became Wads, 1 & 2. The iron pour that birthed these pieces was 17 hours long, lasting until three in the morning on a glorious and wild summer night in August 2013. I made a Lump and two Wads. Structure, process, experience, theory, and a lot of joyful disregard. The Wads have been exhibited at the Sculptor’s Guild, in September 2013, and at Fresh Window, Brooklyn, NY, in 2015. Nonsoloshows.wordpress.com/margaret-coleman
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Wads 1 & 2 1’ x ½’ x ½’ Cast iron and mixed media 2013
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KEIRAN BRENNAN HINTON B.F.A. Painting ’14 Keiran Brennan Hinton lives and works in New Haven, CT. His work has been shown in recent solo exhibitions at the No Foundation in Toronto and at Pratt Institute. He has also taken part in selected group exhibitions at FRONT Art Space and the Affordable Art Fair in New York, the No Foundation Gallery in Toronto, and the Green Hall Gallery at the Yale School of Art. Show Statement: “A house constitutes a body of images that gives mankind proofs or illusions of stability.” —Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space These paintings are an investigation into the ways that humans construct and fictionalize stability. I’ve been thinking about how the physical qualities of a home can have psychological implications on its inhabitants, and how the walls of that home become internalized. My recent series, Construction Paintings, is made from the cutup pieces of older works. I began cutting up my paintings and putting them back together as a way of freeing myself from methods of working that I had become stuck in. This process of destruction allowed me to rethink how a picture is built of physical objects. I began playing with the cut-up canvases, placing pieces from one painting into another as a way to think about the construction and illusion of stability in a domestic setting. keiranbrennanhinton.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Construction (3) 56” x 48” Oil, acrylic, canvas, staples, nails, drywall 2015
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MEREDITH HOFFHEINS M.F.A. Painting and Drawing ’12 Meredith Hoffheins grew up in Hanover, PA. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Show Statement: My landscapes don’t come from any one particular source but from memories of places, literature, history, and my imagination. The depictions of disconcerting or whimsical places are familiar, yet totally displaced. Shadows contend with and often become solid forms, while color contrasts heighten confusion of space. I often consider Early Italian Renaissance paintings and their tightly packed imagery drawn from myth and tradition, among other things. I borrow from their construction of space, before the concept of perspective was fully developed. My intent is to construct an expansive space in a small format. meredithhoffheins.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Graves 17” x 11” Acrylic on canvas 2015 (photo credit: Scott Robinson)
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KRISTIN HOLCOMB M.F.A. Photography ’81 Kristin Holcomb is a photographer who teaches at the International Center of Photography and Nassau Community College. Previously, she taught and advised at New York University from 1984 to 2014. Her work has been exhibited internationally and throughout the United States. Her publications include Pingyao International Photography Festival, catalog, 2008, International Center of Photography, Programs Guide, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, and Interview, Center for Alternative Photography’s Online Journal, capjournal.wordpress.com, Spring 2010. Show Statement: The country landscape is a time-honored tradition in both painting and photography. Bucolic scenes of rolling hills beckon the rural artist. But what of the urban artist? In the urban environment the landscape is often defined by walls, fences, corrugated metal, even barbed or razor wire creating both physical and visual limits; barricades. Even the brownstone backyards of Brooklyn are divided from their neighbors, often with fences so high we can’t see beyond. But looked at from another perspective these urban “scapes” create complex flat surfaces that are reminiscent of graphic design, architectural drawings, or even abstract expressionist paintings. The Scapes series of photographs turns urban barricades of wire, wood, and metal into landscape “drawings” that celebrate the organic nature of the built environment. kristinholcomb.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Scapes #1 22” x 25” framed Pigment print 2015
Scapes #2 22” x 25” framed Pigment print 2015
Scapes #3 22” x 25” framed Pigment print 2015
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BRUCE HORAN M.F.A. Printmaking ’10 Bruce Horan currently serves as the president of the Rowayton Arts Center in Norwalk, CT. Show Statement: Spontaneous and momentary interactions and reactions are explored within these works. The brief encounters that we experience within our changing surroundings provide quick and impulsive determinations, impressions, understandings, and awareness. As we traverse forward, we are inundated with visual and sensory influxes from the people, buildings, sidewalks, traffic, trees, and objects about us that all converge into shapes of color, fields of energy and motion, and loosely interpreted understanding. While we move about, different subjects capture our focus and as quickly as they have appeared, they fade again into colorful abstraction and fleeting impression. The people, objects, and buildings that we pass while moving about the urban landscape are defined only by the short moment of encounter before they transform again into unfamiliar personalities and shapes that obscure and are forgotten as time progresses, leaving only a fading connection and understanding of their personalities and purpose. We focus upon the immediate, allowing for brief definition while our periphery simplifies into abstract impressions of colors and shapes. brucehoran.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Crosswalk 30” x 30” Oil on canvas 2015
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GINNY HOWSAM FRIEDMAN B.F.A. Communications Design ’76 Ginny Howsam Friedman is principal and executive recruiter of Howsam/Weingarten Inc., working with the creative directors and creative managers of all the major New York advertising agencies as well as agencies across the country. Her paintings have been exhibited in a series of solo and group exhibitions across New York State, and in 2007 her painting Nude Dancing appeared and is noted in Fine Arts Connoisseur magazine, Nov–Dec, Galleries and Artists Column. Show Statement: The viewer is experiencing the world through my eyes—part reality, part imagination. The paintings are based in the real world and move into my interpretation. I paint city vendors selling their wares. The images are a mosaic of candy, snacks, drinks—whatever. Each commercial display includes the seller, often just a portion of the person either buried in an array of packaging, on the edge of the composition or emerging from the darkness. These colorful surfaces are patterned by rows of packaging and products. Sometimes moving in a grid horizontally and/or vertically across the canvas.In other images a mix of items creates a riot of texture and color. In this jumble of commerce I want the viewer to stop in wonder the way I do. ginnyhowsamfriedman.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
News Stand 24” x 24” Oil 2015
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DONNA MORAN M.F.A. Painting and Printmaking ’71 Donna Moran is a professor at Pratt Institute and former chair of the Fine Arts Department (2001–12). Her work has been widely exhibited in the United States and abroad, including Australia, Brazil, Peru, Italy, and Spain. Moran has been an artist in residence at The American Academy in Rome, The Vermont Studio Center, U Gratzie Ceramica in Deruta, Italy, and The Centre for Fine Print Research (UWE) in Bristol, England. Her most recent body of work, Points of Contact, reflects upon the physical damages created from storms, overdevelopment of the coastal regions of the Northeast and her native Midwest. Show Statement: My recent imagery reflects the physical damage created from hurricanes and tornadoes, and from the overdevelopment of coastal regions of the Northeast and of my native Midwest. The combination of continuing natural cataclysms and manmade disastrous actions has deeply affected my perception of our physical environment. The small grid in this exhibition, presented on cradled wood panels, reflective of my most current studio work, is also a response to images of worldwide conflict. The series Points of Contact uses collaged abstraction. My only sources are my own silk screen and drawing images and the form that they take perfectly fit into my idea of a fractured architectural and landscaped world. dlmoran.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Points of Contact, Summer Grid Grid made up of three 5” x 7” cradled boards horizontally and four rows vertically. 12 pieces in total with 2½ inches between each cradled board Wood panels, labels, paint, and drawing materials 2015
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ALESSANDRO MOROSANI B.F.A. Jewelry ’12 Alessandro Morosani, better known as Sonz, grew up in a rural section of northwestern Connecticut, where he was no stranger to hands-on learning, or artful expression. He was awarded the 2012 prize for Outstanding Use of Stones and Design Excellence in Jewelry. His work has been exhibited in group shows and craft shows across the country. Show Statement: My technique is called water casting. I melt metal and pour it into a bucket of water at which time it cools into intriguing, spectacular, one of a kind pieces. This technique can be expanded to include organic elements around which the metal solidifies: cabbage floats on top of water; pasta floats amid the water; beans sink to the bottom; hay needs to be saturated so that it does not burn. I patina my pieces with liver of sulphur to give them a wide range of color. With liver of sulphur I can turn sterling silver yellow, blue, red, purple, green, light gray, dark gray, or black. My inspiration comes from fantasy. I combine rococo shapes and Abstract forms. Select organically cast metal pieces are assembled with uncommon pearls, which I put together as though they are puzzle pieces wanting to be made whole. I transform many pieces into a harmony that invites the viewer into the microcosmic world of each individual work. My pieces are over-the-top fluid spectacles. They are manifestations of instinct, intuition, and imagination. Absurd abstraction creates other worldly ornamentation. alessandromorosani.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
There’s A Feeling Inside That I Try To Hide, Taking Control Of Me 2” x ¾” x ⁸” Sterling silver, Tahitian saltwater pearl, leather 2014
Chasing Memories I Used To Own 2” x 1¼” x 1¼” Sterling silver, baroque stick pearl, leather 2015
Don’t Worry, I Can Control It Better, Now 1¾” x 2¾” x ⁵ ⁸” Sterling silver, baroque stick pearl, leather 2014
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SALLY NOVAK B.F.A. Painting ’13 Sally Novak is an award winning Brooklyn-based artist who was born near San Francisco. She was represented by Galleria Dos Damas in San Diego and Palm Springs, California, and Loft 594 in Brooklyn, New York. She was selected to co-curate the show, Flameproof II at Westbeth Gallery in New York in 2013. She is also a teaching artist/educator. Her work is collected in the United States and Europe. Show Statement Ms. Novak works in a variety of media, including found materials, acrylics, and oil on canvas. Her recent works are rendered in oils on paper; part of her Painting-a-Day series is inspired by the natural world, travels, and the places she’s lived. Ms. Novak “builds” layers to form texture. Some of her paintings are reminiscent of topography, others evoke water or air. They reveal provocative, otherworldly environments to meditate and reflect on. sallynovak.org
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
The Environmentals 12 paintings Total installation size: 21” x 24” Each painting measuring 5½” x 6½”
Speak Your Truth 5½”x 6½” Oil on paper (mounted on panel) 2015
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AUBREY ROEMER B.F.A. Painting ’06 Aubrey Roemer has received national and international acclaim for her work, which has been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums. A recipient of residencies in the United States, Europe, and Indonesia, she also received a World Connect grant and the inaugural 2014 ARTwerk grant. In 2014, she created Leviathan: The Montauk Portrait Project, a work that involved painting hundreds of residents of the Long Island fishing hamlet on linens forged from within the community and exhibiting them in flash installations throughout the town. She is currently working on projects in Nicaragua, Indonesia, and Baltimore. Show Statement: These paintings are made on old household linen items that once were wrapped around limbs, used as delicate shields from the sun, former catchers of crumbs and bodily fluids. Aside from this previous utilitarian life, these cloths have traveled from their homeland and ventured in and out of studios, solstices, sands, snow, and showings. They have caught ghostly traces of portraits of their former owners, spills of paint from other projects, and vibrant depictions of the floral and fauna surrounding the lands that they have visited. Inspired by process work and cave paintings, they are a collection of their own individual experience as well as my own personal journey with them, detailing personal predilections and journaling the passage of time both for the artist and the material. The work originated in Montauk, and these large linens were part of Leviathan: The Montauk Portrait Project. They then traveled to Vermont Studio Center metamorphosing into Deer & Artemis, and afterwards were installed in a former horse pasture for winter solstice in memorial to a lost patriarch. The rain and snow from this exhibition washed the original image away. Then they were printed gyotaku style with fish from Montauk’s waters and brought to Vermont for exhibition once again, this time on industrial shipping containers at Burlington Beer. The works then traveled to England for residency in Somerset at 42 Acres, where the countryside’s greenery has taken hold of the imagery. My recent practice of tracing people’s hands and incorporating them into a composition of work—a move that aligns itself with pluralism, collective authorship, and is a direct reference to cave art—has resulted in the hands of the other artist residents at 42 Acres being placed on the works. Finally, the works returned to Montauk for waxing and final touches before reaching their natural conclusion. aubreyroemer.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
All three pieces: Untitled 4’ x 6’ Secondhand linens, wax, water based paint, and marker
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POLLY SHINDLER M.F.A. Painting and Drawing ’11 Polly Shindler lives and works in Bushwick, Brooklyn. She has shown recently at Momenta Art in New Work City, Second Family at 2 Rivington, Paper Jam at the Neuberger Museum, and Family Ties: Brooklyn/Dallas at 500X in Dallas, TX. She is resident curator at Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn. Recent curatorial projects include Instant Vacation, Oracle, Star Gazer/Ancient Light, The Wanderers, Treasure Trove, One and Done, and Future Folk Pt. 1 & 2 in Brookyn, NY. Polly was named one of “30 Artists to Watch in 2012” by NY Arts Magazine and was a resident at Vermont Studio Center in 2013. Show Statement: I have been in the process of organizing my thoughts and methods. My current projects are a catalog of mark making, grids of materials and movements in an attempt to control my space and categorize my time with gestures. Each pattern, list, box in a grid or patch in a quilt denotes a time, a small but significant area in which to record that moment. Diminutive lines converge to create a matrix of moments, signifying a passing of time, a journal of my marks. The mind works so quickly; this process has become my way of collecting thoughts in one place so I can reflect later. Each stroke is a time stamp and a reminder to create the space for big ideas. As they exist today, each painting and drawing is a conglomerate of line, variation, and color, the assemblage of concepts. pollyshindlerpainting.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Flying Patches 20” x 16” Acrylic, oil bar, and spray paint on canvas 2015
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AUDREY STONE B.F.A. Painting ’86 Audrey Stone works primarily in thread and ink or pencil on paper. Show Statement: In 2007 I began a series of work using a combination of thread, ink, and graphite within a grid format to explore what defines a line. At first glance, the lines appear identical with little or no variation from each other. Upon closer inspection it becomes clear that some lines are sewn into the page and others are drawn in ink or graphite. Combining the two materials to create similar effects of line was a way to also think about two separate but overlapping languages; craft and fine art. After working exclusively on paper for about five years, I shifted my attention to canvas and linen but continued my obsession with line while allowing the new materials and surfaces to transport my explorations in new directions. The change in materials opened up the work in terms of composition and personal narrative as the work became bolder and more colorful. Yet I was able to continue to explore the tension between craft and art, and the transforming nature of lines, surfaces, and materials. Both materials come with their own historical narrative: Thread conjures the woman’s means of production and craft from its applications (both functional and decorative), while painting comes from a patriarchal lineage. Combining thread, floss, and sewing techniques with paint allows me to wrestle with that ingrained gender tension. Does the viewer value one material or form of expression over the other? Or have we shed the narratives as two media play on the same field, basically doing the same thing— creating surface, shape, color, image, etc.—is that even possible? audreystone.net
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
#70 17” x 14” (unframed) Ink wash, white ink, thread, pencil on paper 2013
LINE UP! 2 17” x 14” Flashe and acrylic paint, embroidery floss, on linen 2014
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REBECCA WARLICK B.F.A. Painting ’13 Rebecca Warlick is a painter living in New York City. Her work explores her interest in architecture, dreams, metaphysics, and patterns. Geometry is often used as a framework for the improvisation of shapes and colors into Rorschachian constructions. rebeccawarlick.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Untitled #2 20” x 20” Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 2015
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ROBERT IRWIN WOLF B.I.D. ’68 M.P.S. Art Therapy and Creativity Development ’73 Robert Irwin Wolf’s sculptures have been exhibited in galleries throughout the United States and in Seoul, South Korea. Trained in both sculpture and psychology, Wolf has taught graduate art and art therapy courses that integrate expressive art modalities into clinical applications at Pratt Institute and The College of New Rochelle. Show Statement: This piece, DANCER, captures and demonstrates the subtle, abstract gestural qualities that I strive to capture in my stone carvings. Here we can see a reflection, within the stone, of the sensually elegant, flowing movement that inspires the audience as a “dancer” moves gracefully across a virtual stage. On view here today, this stone sculpture, created from a block of Carrara marble, captures the unique blend of figurative and abstract elements of a “dancer” with the intrinsic beauty and fluidity of a sophisticated, aesthetic form. This work suggests a unique gestural communication that is intrinsic to human experience and is perceived on an unconscious, visceral level. I believe that art should communicate on a deeply unconscious level and that the most successful pieces must resonate in a profound way with a viewer. This accounts for subjectivity in the assessment of aesthetic beauty. robertirwinwolf.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
DANCER 27” x 9” x 5” White Carrara Marble, black matte micarta base with recessed swivel mechanism 1999
Alumni Exhibition 2015 Steuben Hall Galleries Main Floor, Room 207
FINE ARTS EXHIBITION
Please do not remove from gallery
Curator
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CURATOR
WILL HUTNICK M.F.A. Painting ’11 Will Hutnick is an artist and independent curator living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Recent exhibitions include Citigroup Center (New York, NY), The Center for Contemporary Art (Bedminster, NJ), Trestle Gallery (Brooklyn, NY) and City Without Walls (Newark, NJ). Hutnick has curated exhibitions at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn Fire Proof, LaunchPad, and Loft 594. His work has been featured in New American Paintings, Beautiful/Decay, and Whitehot Magazine’s “Best Artists List for 2013.” Hutnick has been an artist in residence at Wassaic Artist Residency, 4heads Governors Island, Vermont Studio Center, and a curator in residence with Trestle Project Space. Curatorial Statement: “…In those quiet, sometimes hardly moving times, when something is coming near, I want to be with those who know secret things, or else alone.” —Rilke
Alumni Exhibitors
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MATTHEW ADDISON M.F.A. Painting and Sculpture ’15 Matthew Addison currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. In 2005, Addison survived a major car accident that resulted in a stroke, paralyzing the left side of his body and compromising the left field of vision in both eyes. With the support of friends and family, and by the force of his own will, Matthew overcame incredible hardships in order to attend graduate school. Addison’s body of work includes large-scale paintings, bronze work, ceramics, video art, and sculpture installation. He aspires to become a showing artist and hopes his story will inspire others who face similar obstacles in life. Show Statement: My artwork addresses the challenge of how to make meaningful and interesting art with a compromised physical mobility. Ten years ago, I was in a car accident that resulted in a stroke, leaving half of my body paralyzed. These limitations have forced me to find creative means of expressing myself. While I used to work alone, I now require assistants to carry out ideas. I have devised methods of making art that require only one hand. In the ceramics studio, I squeeze the clay with my good hand, bisque fire it, glaze it, stack it in the kiln, and fire it again. The glazed pieces fuse together in the heat, forming odd objects with unique color patterns. The abstract ceramic forms become a metaphor for my body, which was taken apart and put back together. “Reef” is both an installation and a collection of the ceramic pieces that I made during my M.F.A. at Pratt Institute. matthewaddisonstudioartist.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Reef Dimensions variable Glazed ceramics 2014
Detail
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EMILY AUCHINCLOSS M.F.A. ’11 M.S. History of Art ’13 Emily Auchincloss is a painter of things not strictly visible, of images and patterns one would see with eyes closed, or in a meditative state. She has shown in New York and Boston, most recently at Trestle Projects in Grab Bag and at FlickerLab for Are We Already Gone?. She also writes on art and conducts artist interviews for NY Arts Magazine. She currently resides and has a studio in Boston, where she teaches after-school arts programs. Show Statement: This piece was painted with gouache, sanded with 350-grit sandpaper, and carved using woodworking chisels and gouges. Typical of my recent work, the piece went through many stages and processes of addition and subtraction. Not knowing where it will go, following your nose, acknowledging left turns, seeing the difference between what is true and what is not happened along the way to an arriving that is what you see. I think that’s where Donald Rumsfeld comes in. emilyauchincloss.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Known Unknowns 5” x 3” Gouache on stone clay 2015
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
VASILEIOS BOUZAS M.F.A. ’01 Vasileios Bouzas’s interests include drawing, painting, photography, audio, video, and interactive media. His work, which consists mainly of audio video installations and explorations on Webart, has been exhibited in numerous shows, including Athens-Beton7 Center for the Arts, Art Foundation [taf], CAID Center, Goethe Institute-ARTUP, Art-Athina2007, Attiko Metro-prize for artistic intervention at the metro of Athens, Thessaloniki-Museum of Photography, Action Field Kodra, Videoart Festival MIDEN, and Milano- [.BOX]. He has participated in symposia, talks, and events at many international venues and is currently an assistant professor in fine and applied arts of the University of Western Macedonia, Greece. Show Statement: The video Amfitheatros records a performance of the artist, which took place at one of the main amphitheaters of the School of Architecture of National Technical University of Athens. The continuous repositions of the body inside the theater’s space reveal the extended qualities of the space and negotiate the structures of different interpretations, associated with the identity of both the subject and the space. Multiple perceptions are revealed and interact with each other, creating an archive and a comment for the social and cultural disorder. The work was initially a site-specific installation as the video was projected at the scene of the same amphitheater that was recorded, creating a mirror relation between the participant viewer at the “real” space and the “performing” artist at the virtual one. artroom7.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Amfitheatros Video 2013
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
NATHALIE COLLINS M.F.A. Painting ’09 Nathalie Collins is an artist living and working in Brooklyn. Her work is a play between chance, intuition, and compulsion. Through the act of mark making, using drawn, painted, digging/ripped paper, Collins creates a world in which the viewer gets lost trying to make sense of what is happening while never being allowed to fully grasp it. Collins is originally from Anchorage, Alaska. Show Statement: The piece Untitled, is made of tire shavings, glitter, pastel, and gel medium on paper. A fellow artist and friend gave me some tire shavings that he thought I might use. (He knew that I love odd and unusual materials in my work.) This piece is inspired by the play between banal everyday stuff and organic imagery. I wanted to turn industrial detritus into something beautiful, and as usual my way was to get physical with the material. Putting my hands into the tire shreds and gel medium, I could see and feel with my fingers new form erupting from the page. nathaliecollins.us
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Untitled 36” x 18” Tire shavings, glitter, paste, gel medium and acrylic on paper 2014
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
PEGGY CYPHERS M.F.A. ’79 Peggy Cyphers is a painter, professor of art, and art writer, who has shown her work in the United States and Europe since 1984. She has been the subject of 30 solo exhibitions and three two-person exhibitions and participated in more than 180 group exhibitions. Selected one-person exhibitions include Cross Contemporary Art (New York), The Proposition (New York), New York Academy of Sciences, Rhode Island College, William Patterson College, Galerie Asbeck (Copenhagen), Haines Gallery (San Francisco), Betsy Rosenfield (Chicago), Kleinert James Art Center (Woodstock,NY), Creon Gallery (New York), Mincher Wilcox (San Francisco), and E.M.Donahue Gallery. Cyphers is currently a tenured adjunct professor at Pratt Institute. Show Statement: The art of Peggy Cyphers responds to the multidimensional experience of the landscape from the various viewpoints of living beings. Gazing skyward from the bottom of a cavern like a fox or toward the horizon in a ruffle of woodpecker feathers, Ms. Cyphers reimagines the world through different animal consciousnesses, defying both perspective and gravity. For her recent works on paper, Ms. Cyphers introduces a series of cyanotypes (prints created by sunlight) using rare botanical prairie grass samples and mysterious equine imagery whose reverse shadows are suspended in a sky-blue ground. peggycyphers.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Future Byzantium 50” x 40” Cyanotype on paper 2015
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
HEATHER GARLAND M.F.A. Painting and Drawing ’10 Heather Garland currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and was born in 1980 in Pontiac, MI. Garland has been primarily obsessed with hearts and flowers, rainbows, and any way they can be represented through drawing or painting and merged with thrift store kitsch for some time now. Her work in this show is a direct result of reading Kim Gordon’s Girl in a Band and listening to the music listed in chronological order while working in the studio and reading along. She is vaguely embarrassed and nerdily proud of this. heatherelizabethgarland.blogspot.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
I Hate You and Your Bitchy Friends…I Hate You and It Never Ends 9” diameter, each with a 2”–3” gap between displayed on plate hangers Oil on found ceramic plates, displayed on plate hangers
Bull in the Heather 40”x 30” Oil and prismacolor on panel 2015
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
JULIE GOLL M.F.A. Sculpture ’11 Julie Goll is an artist living and working in Munich, Germany. Show Statement: This work consists of eight slip cast clay elements created from a single mold. The handmade and digitally generated elements combine to give the illusion of perspectival space.
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Untitled 2 2” x 12” x 3” Screen print on clay, thread 2014
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
MICHAEL KAGDIS B.F.A. Merchandising and Fashion Management ’91 Michael Kagdis is an American visual artist specializing in digital imagery and new media. Show Statement: This photograph features a detail of Fort Jefferson National Park. The largest masonry structure in the Americas, the fort is composed of over 16 million bricks. Brick is scheduled to be featured in a national exhibition at the Dry Tortugas National Park Centennial Celebration in 2016.
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Brick 30” x 30” Digital gelatin silver fiber process 2012
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
CRISTINA DE MIGUEL M.F.A. Painting and Drawing ’13 Cristina de Miguel is a Brooklyn-based painter. Originally from Seville, Spain, de Miguel was awarded a Skowhegan residence in the summer of 2013. Her work has been reviewed in ARTINFO, NY Arts Magazine, El Correo de Andalucia, and others. Recent solo exhibitions include Absolutely Yours at Freight + Volume Gallery, Extraùos en la noche intercambiando miradas at Arts + Leisure Gallery, and Nike Head at Cuchifritos Gallery. De Miguel is represented by Freight + Volume gallery in New York. cristinademiguel.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Self Portrait 52” x 40” Mixed media on canvas 2015
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
JENNIFER SHEPARD M.S. Communications Design, Digital Design ’12 Jennifer Shepard currently lives and works in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Recent exhibitions include The Air Around It at The Wright Gallery in Northport, Michigan; New Work City at Momenta Art in Bushwick; Goodbye Times Bitch, a solo exhibition at Brooklyn Wayfarer’s TOBY project space; Do It Yourself at Livestream Public in Bushwick; and Transversed/Reversed at Arts Riot in Burlington, Vermont. Shepard has taught at both Pratt Institute and Borough of Manhattan Community College and is an occasional curator. She is also an art director and digital designer at Saatchi & Saatchi New York, which continues to influence her studio practice. Show Statement: Shepard makes wonky sculptures and paintings that incorporate many different types of mark-making and surface disruption. She is drawn to angular structures and form, because they feel like planes that could continue on in any direction, even extending into other dimensions or existing as portals to other dimensions. When she is working she enters a space that is meditative and pushes into that flow. Shepard works in a stream of consciousness fashion, allowing objects and marks to emerge from her subconscious. She thinks of the act of art making as a sort of conjuring, digging from deep places where emotion and memory can emerge as physical forms. Shepard creates these structures in a nonlinear fashion, making immediate intuitive decisions as she goes. She works primarily with kind of lowbrow materials such as caulk and spray paint, mostly because she likes the immediacy and accessibility of the materials but also enjoys the reference to rough construction. Shepard is strongly influenced by landscape, urban and otherwise. Both the sculptures and the standing paintings bear a relationship to game pieces. Shepard thinks of them as some kind of warped Chutes and Ladders characters or odd props that are part of a stage set for a play. For her, the world is a place where intangibles and things that we cannot see are just as real as those that we can. She seeks to enter the space where the two meet. jenshepardart.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
I Scream, You Scream 14” x 18” x 16” Caulk, acrylic, spray paint, graphite, joint compound on Masonite 2015
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FINE ARTS EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
HELAINE SOLLER B.F.A. Advertising Design ’62 A lifelong resident of Queens, NY, Helaine Soller, is an artist, curator, art critic, educator, and workshop leader. Her work can be found in numerous public and private collections, including the Library of Congress, National Museum of Women in the Arts Archives, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital, Segal, McCambridge, Singer and Mahoney, and Spectrum Financial Consultants. Soller’s work has also been included in exhibitions at the Long Island Museum, Queens Museum, Bronx Museum, Canajoharie Museum, Museum of Anthropology of the People of New York, PS 1 MoMA, Exit Art, and a show at the UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference. Show Statement: Formations 5 is part of an ongoing series of paintings by Helaine Soller based on viewing the natural wonders in our national parks, revealing her love for nature and the need to create awareness of our fragile environment. “My Formations 5 painting presents rock formations in an imaginative and colorful way to express the powerful and endless variety of natural formations found in our national parks. This painting is playful in its approach and yet it references a Bauhaus color palette based on the neutral and almost primary colors of the natural environment. I was struck by the sculptural quality of the powerful and majestic formations and the intense colors, always changing in atmospheric light, ever-changing in weather and again through the viewer’s perspective.” helainesoller.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS
Formations 5 12” x 9” Acrylic on canvas 2015
Alumni Exhibition 2015 On the Lawn
WRITING EXHIBITION
Please do not remove
Curators
WRITING EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
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CURATORS
JASON HELM Jason is an adjunct assistant writing professor at Pratt Institute, where he teaches a junior fiction studio and special topics in writing class called “Social Science Fiction.” Hailing from Boone, IA, his goals are to bridge the gap between the working class and literary worlds, present new queer archetypes, and unveil the fantastic ridiculousness of our contemporary moment. Helm’s short stories have been published by Eclectica, Birds of Lace, and Lumina, among others. He is currently querying his first novel, Dictator of the World, a dystopian political satire that takes place on a reality TV show. RACHEL LEVITSKY Rachel Levitsky’s hybrid poetries and prose utilize politics, humor, and abstraction to map the structural reality of everyday life. In 1999, Levitsky started Belladonna Series in order to investigate and promote feminist avant-garde poetics, now called Belladonna* Collaborative. Levitsky is part of the core faculty in the new M.F.A. in Writing at Pratt Institute, where she also initiated the program of Creative Writing for Art and Design and, with Christian Hawkey, the Office of Recuperative Strategies. Her recent books are NEIGHBOR (UDP), The Story of My Accident Is Ours (Futurepoem) and the chapbook Renoemos (Delete). Curatorial Statement: We as curators were delighted and delightfully surprised by the range and breadth of writing done by writer-artists from the very first graduating classes to the most recent graduating classes. Their writing—in subjects that range from blue-jean patent crime, to goth femininity, to confrontations with culture, nation, encounters with place and the natural world, friendship, the loss of a parent, nostalgia, the trade tower’s collapse from a architect fleeing, dolls, and fish—shows that Pratt students maintain an inventive fluidity of identity and muscularity in their approaches to all usable form. That a call to Pratt alumni brings such a diverse group representing so many generations, genres, genders, and histories of engendering, shows that language like other plastics is a material of great elasticity and that writing is a vibrant art form at this great art institute. We are honored to present these graduate writers who will share their voices, their contexts, their particulars, and their universals and thrilled to inaugurate a new tradition of writers being showcased.
Alumni Exhibitors
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WRITING EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS, CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULT
We Are All the Same on the Inside Children’s book
TIMOTHY BELLAVIA M.F.A. ’95 Timothy Bellavia is a children’s author, illustrator, and educator. His first children’s publication We Are All the Same Inside® won a Christopher Award nomination, and an opportunity to present the accompanying Sage doll-making workshop curriculum on the International Day of Tolerance at the United Nations. Over the past decade, Timothy has collaborated with several nonprofit organizations including: Sesame Workshop, Mattie J.T. Stepanek Foundation, Cyndi Lauper, and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, among others. He currently teaches Art Education in the Graduate School of Education at Touro College and University System in New York. Writer’s Statement: The primary purpose of my writing and the We Are All the Same Inside® philosophy is to help young learners embrace we all have in common and explore the various aspects of human diversity. timothydbellavia.com
I Was a “Prattstitute” Short story
BARBARA GOLUB Costume Design ’48 Barbara Golub currently works in research in the marketing and promotions field. Prior to that, she designed children’s wear for many years. She is part of the “OLLI” program at Stony Brook University and is currently at work writing her memoirs. Writer’s Statement I originally wrote this story, I Was a Prattistute, in my Memoir Writing Workshop in “OLLI” the seniors program at Stony Brook University. This is one chapter of my full and rewarding life my children and grandchildren aren’t familiar with, and I’d love to share it with them and with those attending Pratt Alumni Day 2015. This story will let everyone know the important role Pratt Institute played in making me the person I am today.
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WRITING EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
A Day with Bonefish Joe Children’s book
ELIZABETH HOWARD M.S. Communications Design ’85 Elizabeth Howard is a writer and communications professional, combining journalism, international corporate communications, and marketing consulting. Her work has appeared in Corporate Board magazine, Communication Arts magazine, European Communications, Investor Relations, Law Firm Marketing & Profit Report, Communication World, and The New York Law Journal, among other publications. She has had letters to the editor published in Fortune Magazine and The New York Times. Her first children’s book, A Day with Bonefish Joe, was recently published by David R. Godine. Writer’s Statement: Books, and the stories and poems that fill their pages, have shaped my life. Often I have traveled alone, miles from the cacophony that defines New York, to find (perhaps discover) a quiet landscape where I can read. And, write my own stories and recollections. With every turn of the clock life shifts, and it is with words and images that we can record those experiences to remember and to share. adaywithbonefishjoe.com
Myrtle Avenue EL, 1960 Essay
DAVID LLOYD MARON B. Architecture ’65 David Lloyd Maron, AIA, has been practicing architecture in his New York City firm since 1978. He has taught several courses in what is now the Pratt Humanities Department, including freshman writing. Maron lives with his wife in Englewood, NJ. Writer’s Statement: A few of my architectural clients have said, “Oh, I could be an architect, if only I had the time.” Well, I am an architect, and I would never be so foolish to say that I could be an author if only I had the time. My writing is passionate, but very sporadic—not the hallmark of a working author. The short piece I am presenting today is from the time the Myrtle Avenue elevated subway cast a dark shadow across that street, separating the bright days of college from the gritty world beyond. dlmaron.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS, CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULT
Bronx Faces and Voices YA Nonfiction
JANET BUTLER MUNCH M.S.L.I.S. ’77 Dr. Janet Butler Munch is a professor and special collections librarian at the CUNY Lehman College. Along with Dr. Emita Hill, she co-edited Bronx Faces and Voices: Sixteen Stories of Courage and Commitment (Texas Tech University, 2014). Raised in the Bronx, Munch has worked over the past 30 years with Bronx researchers and collections, including Lehman’s Bronx Institute Archives of community oral histories, books, documents, maps, and photographs. Co-editor’s Statement: In Bronx Faces and Voices, 16 men and women tell their personal, uncensored stories of the northernmost NYC borough—before, during and after the troubled years of arson, crime abandonment, and flight in the 1970s and 1980s. We hear the positive voices of committed activists, elected officials, and religious leaders who tried to preserve the beauty and stability of their neighborhoods. These individuals courageously stayed, fought drug dealers, absent landlords, banks that relined communities, and a media that made the Bronx an international symbol of urban disaster. Their stories of the Bronx in the latter part of the 20th century deserve to be heard and remembered.
The Counterfeit Detective Fiction
PAUL R. PARADISE M.S.L.I.S. ’02 Paul Paradise’s forthcoming novel The Counterfeit Detective, which is based on an award-winning short story, will be published this year by Koehler Books. Paradise is the author of many books and articles on trademark counterfeiting, called the “business crime of the 21st Century by the FBI.” His next book, How Peer to Peer (P2P) File Sharing is Shaping the Internet, will be available in 2016. Writer’s Statement: My book Trademark Counterfeiting, Product Piracy, and the Billion Dollar Threat to the U.S. Economy (Praeger) was published while I was studying at Pratt, and now I’m back at my alma mater, just in time for my first novel, The Counterfeit Detective, which should be available on Amazon.com shortly. paulrparadise.com
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WRITING EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
Lenny; 3 AM; There Was a Time… Poetry
LEONARD ANCES B.S. Electrical Engineering ’64 Leonard Ances is a retired systems engineer whose career has included working at IBM. He now dedicates his time to making art.
The PM, Some Thoughts on Mondrian Non-fiction
MARGARET ATKINSON B.F.A. Drawing ’84 Meg Atkinson is an artist and art educator who lives in New York City. She has exhibited in New York City and the tristate area, including shows at Morgan Lehman Gallery and Storefront Ten Eyck. Atkinson has also contributed to the blog, Painters on Paintings, and has had fiction published in BookCourt’s literary magazine, Cousin Corinne’s Reminder. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Writer’s Statement: Initially I turned to writing as a way of staying creative when I didn’t have the time or space in which to paint. Surprisingly I discovered that my writing method is the same as my painting method: I work on pieces for years at a time. Like my paintings, my writing is never finished. When a creation finally works out it is because all the pieces fit together in a parts-to-whole way. It is always frustrating and sometimes very rewarding. I feel lucky that I get to create. megatkinson.com
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS, ADULT
The World that Summer; Mall Goth Poetry
ANNALIESE DOWNEY B.F.A. Writing ’13 Annaliese Downey lives in Philadelphia. Currently, she facilitates Not a Cult, a discussion group for young creative transplants, and sings in a band called SLUR. Writer’s Statement: Extreme experience is the gateway to higher consciousness. The flower that dies in the face of the sun. Pink roses and black leather. Don’t let em tell you you’re confused. queenmarg0t.tumblr.com
A gentle man; The ship has sailed on the tattoos (after Tina Fey); The kidnapping of the poet Allen G. by the student Michael E. Poetry
DANIELLA VAN GENNEP B.F.A. Photography and Media Arts ’82 Daniella van Gennep was born in Amsterdam but has lived in New York City since 1978. She has built a career in graphic design, managing her own firm since 1985, while simultaneously (though intermittently) pursuing her love of writing. Writer’s Statement Writing is my first love, something I was never fully able to admit to myself for fear of not measuring up. Instead I harbored it as a secret dream while pursuing a career in graphic design. While I fancy myself a short story writer, what I write most is poetry, possibly the most impractical of all writing forms. Flards of conversations, memories, visual encounters get stuck in my head and find their way out in the form of poetry. It is a solace to me to write; at stressful times it calms me. Sometimes I envision leaving my career to devote time to writing but am afraid it would be counterproductive. Writing is an antidote to my stress and hectic life but it also flows from it. If people experience a sense of recognition, a fleeting moment of melancholy, or best, yet, a laugh, I feel my effort has been worth it. vangennepdesign.com
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WRITING EXHIBITION GALLERY GUIDE
Greetings From; dialogue Poetry
CHANICE HUGHES-GREENBERG B.F.A. Writing for Performance, Publication, and Media ’10 Chanice Hughes-Greenberg’s senior thesis, “In Situ,” won the 2010 Thesis Award in Poetry at Pratt Institute. Her work has appeared in Caketrain, CORRESPONDENCE, Art Observed, and is forth coming in Packet Biweekly. She currently works at the Museum of Modern Art and wishes she wrote poems during her lunch break. Writer’s Statement: I wrote my first poem in the fourth grade—it was an imitation of Carl Sandburg’s “Fog.” The idea and imagery of fog with little cat feet made me want to explore a new world, where I could create and connect unlikely yet beautiful images. My need to create images grew into playing with language—using words beyond their set meaning. As I became interested in art and artists that use language as a medium, I adopted that practice as well. The way words work on the page is an important part of my writing process. I write frequently about memory and daily observations but am expanding to a process of collecting and combining words and phrases, some my own, some from outside texts. The outcome is still a poem or piece of writing that explores how words function and works to create an image that can be familiar yet new. I continue to work towards my own fog with little cat feet. cargocollective.com/chanicehughesgreenberg
Two Kids; Waiting for Isabella; Wooley Wooley Poetry
VERNON FORD B.F.A. Advertising Design ’63 Vernon Ford was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1941. After studying design, Ford worked at design consulting firms for 35 years, including Sandgren & Murtha, Chermayeff & Geismar, Anspach Grossman & Portugal and Enterprise IG. He started his own office, Ford Design, in 2001, and is a real estate salesperson and Interpreter for Historic Hudson Valley. He is a resident of Westchester, married with two grown children. Writer’s Statement: During my time at Van Cortlandt Manor interpreting 18th-century American History, I began recording my visual thoughts. The word “Interpreter” comes from the Latin meaning “going between past and present;” it made me a time traveler in my writing. I began writing short stories then later verse with rhyme to my current body of work, free verse. My influences are Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Buffy St. Marie, and Billy Collins. During my hands-on workshops as an artist I can also become a writer.
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ALUMNI EXHIBITORS, ADULT
Amerigoth; Eternal Stay America Poetry
ANNIE PARADIS B.F.A. Writing ’13 Annie Paradis’s work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in LUNGFULL!, Timber Journal, Drunken Boat, Fence, and elsewhere. Her chapbook of poems LOVE POEMS will be published by TXTBooks this coming fall. She has spent three summers as a residential instructor at the University of Virginia’s Young Writers Workshop. Currently, Paradis resides in Philadelphia, where she studies improvisational theater and hosts a monthly performance series. Writer’s Statement: In 2013 I spent 10 months in AmeriCorps NCCC FEMA Corps (a government-funded volunteer program). Amerigoth and Eternal Stay America are my attempts at navigating an institution that often does more harm than good. paradislost.com
Colored Edges Fiction
SHARON SKOLNICK-BAGNOLI B.I.D. ’66 Visual and word artist Sharon Skolnick-Bagnoli has worked for Raymond Loewy Associates (Skylab interiors) and the Office of Gordon Ashby (exhibits). At NASA’s Skylab reunion, she spoke on the humanization of space station interiors. Currently a graphic designer and writer, she has published three books: Dreams of Tamalpais (1989, Last Gasp), Shiny Objects (2009, Beatitude Press), and Colored Edges (2015, Spaceframe Press). She is married to videographer/project manager Bruce Bagnoli and lives in Marin County, California. Writer’s Statement: This is my first novel. In it, the idea of peace is resisted, explored, and finally experienced. Iris Miller is an idealistic midlife artist and writer whose dream of helping the world reach peace keeps scraping up against an anguished psyche that holds very little peace. Her healing journey takes the reader to some unexpected places, including American Indian country and Israel/Palestine. In Colored Edges, the sections follow the spectrum, just as Iris’s quest does. From passion, ambition, and frustration (the red range), Iris’s life moves across the rainbow to a sort of epiphany (the violet range). Iris finds a surprising tool for self-renewal in classical color therapy, using colors to heal first herself and then others. Color and chromotherapy are further explored in the appendix. Although parts of my life are interwoven throughout Colored Edges, one is never too sure where the invention ends and the documentary begins. Fiction and poetry dance with memoir and essay within these pages. My purpose in building this novel was to bring the reader along on an extraordinary ride. it was also to leave behind a few gems of insight and some facets of the truth. Colored Edges is a peace adventure, and I think it does that. visagraf.com