April 4 – May 17
THE IGNITION SPACE
FALL RIVER
April 11 – May 17
NEW BEDFORD ART MUSEUM
This annual exhibition celebrates the Art + Design work of graduating students from the College of Visual and Performing Arts graduate program.
April 4 – May 17
THE IGNITION SPACE FALL RIVER
April 11 – May 17
NEW BEDFORD ART MUSEUM
exhibiting artists
RUTH DOUZINAS
ZEPH LUCK
MATTHEW NAPOLI
FALLON KEIKO NAVARRO
DARLEY ORTIZ GARCIA
GREETINGS FROM THE OFFICE OF THE DEAN
The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) is the terminal degree in the visual arts and design fields, and those with this degree are entitled to teach in their disciplines at almost any institution of higher learning. The pathway to the MFA, therefore, is both rigorous and demanding, and the students who are showing their MFA Thesis work this year (Class of 2024) have worked long and hard to reach this exciting moment in their academic careers. Their work is the culmination of exploring and experimenting, sometimes successfully and sometimes less so, but always coming back to make their art stronger. This work has also been forged in lengthy conversations and critiques with their dedicated faculty and their peers and colleagues in the program. I am extremely proud and awed by the work exhibited here by our five extraordinary 2024 MFA candidates: Ruth Douzinas, Zeph Luck, Matthew Napoli, Fallon Keiko Navarro, and Darley Ortiz Garcia.
The Class of 2024 was, in particular, challenged by the sudden closure of the Star Store Campus in New Bedford last summer. That building housed their studio spaces, many of the facilities they depended on to make their work, and even the University Art Gallery where we have hosted the annual MFA show for more than two decades. With amazing resilience, though, each of these students, and in their own way, embodies the true spirit of the artist who is driven to make work, overcoming the obstacles often laid down in front of them.
While the University worked to find transitional space for our graduate students, they worked in makeshift spaces, faculty offices, and borrowed studios and at maker facilities spread across the South Coast. I imagine these students’ work would have looked different were you viewing it at the University Art Gallery; the sudden loss of their working spaces led by necessity to the rethinking of materials, processes, scale, and concept. The work presented at these two venues is, I think, more confident than it might have been and certainly no less impressive.
The MFA is both the end of a long educational road and the beginning of an artistic career. We see here the heights each of our students has risen, and we all eagerly anticipate what is to come as they continue their creative practices.
There are many people to thank here. The graduate faculty has dedicated hours of time to working with and guiding our students. Professor Suzanne Schireson, Director of the MFA Program, has also kept them (and all of us) on the administrative rails as they moved through their years here. Lin Dong and her administrative colleagues likewise have been essential to guaranteeing the smooth operation of the MFA Program and especially during the current academic year. Gallery Director Viera Levitt worked very quickly to identify venues for this year’s exhibition, and she has been working with the students, as she always does, to create vibrant and exciting exhibitions. I am also grateful to Prof. Michelle Bowers for the design of this wonderful catalog that accompanies the show. I would like to acknowledge with real gratitude Suzanne de Vegh, Executive Director of the Art Museum New Bedford, and Ashley Occhino, Director of FRACC, and her colleague there, Dorothy MahoneyPacheco, for offering us the spectacular venues where the show is installed, at the Museum in New Bedford and the Ignition Space in Fall River. Our artists’ work looks terrific in both spaces, and CVPA is thrilled that the MFA Exhibition is in each of the largest cities on the South Coast.
I hope you all enjoy the work of our almost recent MFA graduates—Ruth, Zeph, Matthew, Fallon and Darley— and that you will join me in congratulating them on their accomplishments and wishing them the best as they move forward in their careers.
Lawrence Jenkens Dean, College of Visual and Performing Arts UMass Dartmouth
NOTES FROM THE EXHIBITION CURATOR
The UMass Dartmouth MFA Thesis Exhibition is a much anticipated and celebrated annual event showcasing the artwork of graduating Master of Fine Arts students from the College of Visual and Performing Arts. This 2024 exhibition celebrates the work of graduates Ruth Douzinas, Zeph Luck, Matthew Napoli, Fallon Keiko Navarro, and Darley Ortiz Garcia. This year, the exhibition takes place in two locations, just 15 miles apart: The Ignition Space in Fall River and at the New Bedford Art Museum (People’s Gallery). Each student exhibits different pieces of their work in both locations.
Ruth’s work surprises us in the entrance of the Fall River exhibition. Her pallets look just like the ones on the side of the road, ubiquitous objects that are not needed after they served their purpose during deliveries. Ruth’s cinder blocks also refer to a pedestrian and ever present object. Look closer to realize they are actually hand-made ceramic objects. There is an abundance of care in their creation, also humor, and a desperate need to fix all the broken parts, stitch it together – and make the world a better, more sustainable place.
From the ceiling of the industrial gallery space Zeph hangs large scale fabric pieces that repeat his original pattern containing organic forms, fish and vegetables in a witty and serious, yet humorous way. We can see these patterns in his smaller work, documenting the most unusual combination of items gathered for the still life.
Matthew’s world includes paintings in hues of an ubiquitous violet, that compliment Ginkgo biloba tree seedlings he grew in black plastic planters from seeds taken from Purchase Street in New Bedford. We are waiting for them to start growing again after they lost leaves in the winter and transform the exhibition space while bringing hope of a new growth.
Fallon’s body of work is fragile, yet powerful, rhythmic and playful. Her non-functional ceramic pieces are light and draw attention to the negative space, whether it is in free standing structures, a hanging chandelier, or a smaller object that admits its own vulnerability by leaning against the larger piece. By adding piping technique as if ceramic replaced sugar frosting, and candles burning and melting during the show, Fallon shows how comfortable she is to cross a border of ceramic object to site-specific installation.
Darley uses illustration, digital media, and animation to show the visitors a newly created imaginary world populated by characters, stories, complex relationships and even its own language. The centerpiece of this presentation is a book documenting Darley’s journey of discovery of this obscure, unique universe.
I would like to express our sincere thanks to Fall River Arts and Culture Coalition (FRACC) for hosting us in The Ignition Space. This venue was recently renovated as a part of “Gather” in a former wallpaper factory thanks to the Mass Development TDI, with Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art as a part of this complex. I would also like to thank the New Bedford Art Museum for opening their People’s Gallery to our students. Thank you also to all our faithful audiences for their ongoing support of our students and exhibition programming.
Viera Levitt
UMass Dartmouth Gallery Director
RUTH DOUZINAS
statement
Made of clay and found materials, my large-scale sculptures are either constructed through stacking or assembly of disparate parts. They are based on iconic manmade forms— pallets, cinder blocks, and columns—that are foundational to our economy, but often overlooked and abandoned: relegated to the stream of waste. Broken, repaired, and meticulously reworked using layers of glaze to create worn surfaces, these sculptures honor useful objects. Patina, scale and presentation devices are used to represent an inquiry into value - what is saved and repaired versus what is thrown away and exposed to natural degradation. Interweaving feelings of hope and futility, I leverage the pace of the discarded object as commentary on current environmental change and human ingenuity.
Ruth Douzinas is a New York based artist, environmental engineer, and entrepreneur primarily working in ceramics, while also branching out into weaving and sewing found materials. She received a BA from Dartmouth College in Environmental Biology and holds an MS from Stanford University in Environmental Engineering and Science. Ruth works in Long Island City, Queens and is currently an MFA candidate in Ceramics at UMass Dartmouth. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at NCECA Sacramento, the Yellowstone Art Museum in Montana, the Workhouse Art Center in Virginia, and Katheti Cultural Center in Greece, and other institutions.
Lichen Pallet II, 2023 Clay, screws 31.5" x 32" x 1.5"
Rust Pallet I, 2023 Clay, rust, wire 30.5" x 31" x 5"
Blue Pallet II, 2023 Clay, wire 30" x 50" x 5"
Blue Pallet I, 2023 Clay, wire 31" x 30" x 5"
Lichen Pallet I, 2023 Clay, wire, jute string, fasteners 31" x 48" x 7"
RUTH DOUZINAS
Plastic Pallets I & II, 2024
Single use plastic bottles, string 42" x 40" x 7"
Plastic Pallets I & II (detail), 2024
Single use plastic bottles, string 42" x 40" x 7"
Sand Pallet I, 2023 Clay, epoxy, wire, rocks 19" x 16" x 2.5"
Sand Pallet II, 2023 Clay, epoxy, rocks 19" x 11" x 2.5"
Sand Pallet III, 2023 Clay, epoxy, wire, rocks 19" x 16" x 2.5"
Blue Pallet I (detail), 2023
Clay, wire 31" x 30" x 5"
ZEPH LUCK
In our current age of instant information and technology we have lost our sense of curiosity and wonder. People no longer find awe in everyday things. It is this part of the world that inspires my art – the quotidian flora and fauna that we see in and around our ecosystems. I believe the ecosystems we encounter each day are just as capturing as those in faraway exotic places. All we need to do is take the time to admire them.
I work in several mediums, including painting, drawing, and printmaking. However, the methods I use in creating my compositions remain consistent across them. I add, subtract, overlap, and interweave subjects until I reach a balanced composition of visual complexity. I create my images like puzzles with subjects that need time to find their way through. In this process of creating and decontextualizing them, I transform these subjects from just being animals, plants, or fungi, into something more. This invites the
viewer to reconsider them and use their own lexicon to create an individual understanding of the work. Through this experience, I hope to remind the viewer to stop, slow down, and really look at the world around us.
Zeph Luck’s inspiration of nature started at a very young age. He spent his earliest years living in Tidewater, Virginia playing in the ocean and the Chesapeake Bay, and then moved to a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina. His deep connection to these locations and the flora and fauna that are around him on a daily basis is the inspiration for his art. Zeph’s formal training started in high school when attending Weaver Academy for the Performing and Visual Arts in North Carolina. Next, he received his BFA in Drawing and Printmaking from UNC at Greensboro. Luck is currently a candidate for MFA in Painting at UMass Dartmouth.
ZEPH LUCK
Lobster,
Cacophony
Acadian
Cedar
MATTHEW NAPOLI
Experts name our place in natural history the Anthropocene, defining today’s earth as under the dominion of humans. Finding inspiration in a time characterized by environmental crises and a sense of precarity, my artwork appraises and poeticizes the difficult feelings of estrangement from creation.
Through the imperfection of painting, I process the imperfect shape of life today-- and the difficulty of constructing positive meaning in our disordered home. These paintings are premised on the insolvency of any philosophy which considers humans as distinct from, or superior to, nature.
We might be wise to consider other species and their success; ginkgo biloba trees have lived on earth for a thousand times longer than us. What have they done right to make it on earth for so long, and what have we done so wrong in a comparatively brief amount of time? How might humans more elegantly and sustainably position the place in natural history we so viciously asserted?
Gingko biloba. I am growing trees in my guest room. I wanted to feel more connected to nature, so I bought plastic pots, plastic bags of soil, and a plastic watering can, 2023 Oil on canvas laid on panel 39" x 41"
Taxonomic Estrangement, 2023 Oil on oil primed canvas 13" x 16"
Matthew Napoli is an artist based in Providence, RI working in painting and natural materials including live plants. After beginning his training at San Jacinto College in his native Houston, TX, he earned his bachelor’s degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and shortly after completed a residency at the New York Academy of Art. Napoli has exhibited his work in cities including Houston, Baltimore, Dallas, and New York City. He was a finalist for the 2022 AXA Art Prize, and in 2023 was awarded a grant from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. As an art educator, he has taught and been a visiting speaker at UMass Dartmouth, MICA, SUNY Oneonta, University of Texas at Arlington, and the Newport Art Museum.
MATTHEW NAPOLI
Protection
Romance
Does A Man Also Eat Himself, Also Contain Poison?
FALLON KEIKO NAVARRO
By organizing individual-built ceramic objects and utilizing the familiar and unfamiliar, I create a physical dialogue of hybrid environments. Coiling, pinching, and piping become a form of embodied ritual, tactile processes that document and physicalize time. Utilizing these meticulous, repetitive processes, accumulation and layering become a vehicle for translating my inner world into tangible objects. I employ a visual language of lattices, grids, and screens to create and reimagine functional objects. Using negative space, color, the organic tilt of the object, and the overt intention of a drip, I further highlight a coexistence of dualities between seen/ unseen and interior/exterior. The juxtaposition of distorted elements within familiar settings prompts reconsidering what is known. My work emerges as a tangible reflection of the unseen inner forces that shape our physical and emotional landscapes, encouraging myself and viewers to make space for the unknown.
New Bedford, Massachusetts-based ceramic artist Fallon Navarro utilizes unexpected material combinations and color to reimagine narratives and call to attention new ways of being in the world. Her work invites viewers to contemplate the nuanced interplay of time, identity, and the body in her distinctive artistic language. Originally from Phoenix, Arizona, Fallon received her BFA in Ceramics at Arizona State University. She is currently a Master of Fine Arts candidate in Ceramics.
FALLON KEIKO NAVARRO
Can I Stay for a Little?, 2024 Ceramic installation 38" x 20" x 36"
Somewhere In-Between, 2023-24
Site Specific Installation (ceramics, glaze, wax, candles, antique table) 40" x 29" x 48"
Can I Stay for a Little? (detail), 2024 Ceramic installation 38" x 20" x 36"
A Place Like Home (detail), 2024
Site specific installation, ceramic, piped unfired clay, antique table 3′ x 6′
DARLEY ORTIZ GARCIA
I have always loved to tell stories, more so creating them. This passion often leads me to conversations where I am frantically explaining how the world I created, Lernel works and how characters like Delmare or her parents are impacted by the ecosystem in which they live in.
While it is important to me that the characters feel real, with not just goals and flaws but also include moments where they appear irrational, moody or even out of character. This emphasizes their humanity. After all, everyone has quirks that can be charming one moment and lead to their downfall the next.
While working on this project, I realized that animation with sound would allow the audience a deeper exploration of the culture I have been developing.
My hope is that my work conveys that world-building is more than creating backgrounds or characters. It was about creating cultures, languages, and traditions that make the world feel lived-in.
Darley Ortiz Garcia is an animator and storyteller based in Rhode Island. Her stories aim not only to introduce an audience to other cultures and larger societal issues, but also to inspire that audience to explore more of the world and establish deeper connections with those around them. Ortiz Garcia's Mexican heritage and close family bonds powerfully shape their work, inspiring narratives centered on the importance of family. Darley earned a BFA in both Graphic Design and Animation + Game Arts at UMass Dartmouth and is currently pursuing an MFA in Digital Media.
DARLEY ORTIZ GARCIA
x 1080px
2048px
Hei
Hei Matau Somber, 2024 Digital drawing 1080px Matau Portrait, 2024 Digital drawing 1080px x 1080px Sankofa Portrait, 2024 Digital drawing 2048px x Delmare Portrait, 2024 Digital drawing 2028px x 2028px Lernae and its Moons (Doto and Sinopoe), 2024 Digital drawing 1920px x 1080px
Installation of the Ignition Space exhibition, Ruth Douzinas, Zeph Luck, Matthew Napoli, Fallon Keiko Navarro, Darley Ortiz Garcia
Installation of the Ignition Space exhibition, Ruth Douzinas, Zeph Luck, Matthew Napoli, Fallon Keiko Navarro, Darley Ortiz Garcia
RUTH DOUZINAS
Ceramics
rdouzinas@hotmail.com
ruthdouzinas.com
ZEPH LUCK
Painting
zephanluck@gmail.com
zephluck.com
FALLON KEIKO NAVARRO Ceramics
fallonk.navarro@gmail.com
fallonnavarro.com
Instagram: @fallon_navarro
MATTHEW NAPOLI Painting
matthewnapoli.art@gmail.com
matthewjnapoli.com
Instagram: @matthewjnapoli
DARLEY ORTIZ GARCIA
Digital Media
darleysgarcia18@gmail.com
darleygarcia.artstation.com
linkedin.com/in/dortizgarcia
2024 MFA THESIS EXHIBITION
College of Visual and Performing Arts
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
April 4 – May 17, 2024
The Ignition Space
44 Troy Street, Fall River, MA 02720
April 11 – May 17, 2024
New Bedford Art Museum (People’s Gallery)
608 Pleasant Street, New Bedford, MA 02740
EDITORS
Michelle Bowers
Jessica Fernandes Gomes
Viera Levitt
Suzanne Schireson
PLANNING AND LOGISTICS
Jessica Fernandes Gomes
Shingo Furukawa
Viera Levitt
Suzanne Schireson
GALLERY ASSISTANT
Anamika Ponthan
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Chris Diani
Viera Levitt
Jeff Smudde Student Archives
DESIGN
McGuire Bettes
Michelle Bowers
Nickola Getchevski
Stephanie Vallee
Melanie Veilleux
Nathan Wright
umassd.edu/cvpa/galleries
umassdartmouthgalleries
UMass Dartmouth Galleries
PRINTING
Mallard Printing
ISBN: 978-1-7338036-6-3
THANK YOU
The College of Visual and Performing Arts would like to express its sincere thanks to Ashley Occhino and Dorothy Mahoney-Pacheco from Fall River Arts and Culture Coalition (FRACC) for hosting us in The Ignition Space. It is part of The Ignition Project supported by TDI Creative Catalyst Grant Program which is administered by MassDevelopment and funded by the Barr Foundation.
We would also like to thank the New Bedford Art Museum for opening their People’s Gallery to our students, especially to the Museum Director Suzanne de Vegh.
Thank you to Associate Professor Michelle Bowers and her Graphic Design students for designing promotional materials, Paula Erenberg Medeiros for creating our online gallery website, and Dean Lawrence Jenkens for his ongoing support.
Viera Levitt, Gallery Director
email: gallery@umassd.edu
phone: 508 999 8555
CVPA at UMass Dartmouth is a proud partner of AHA! (Art, History, & Architecture) Night — New Bedford’s free Downtown cultural event and collaborative organization.
umassd.edu/cvpa
umassdcvpa
CVPA UMass Dartmouth
Installation of the New Bedford Art Museum exhibition, Ruth Douzinas, Zeph Luck, Matthew Napoli, Fallon Keiko Navarro, Darley Ortiz Garcia
ISBN 9781733803663
803663