MFA Review

Toward the beginning of the semester, the MFA candidates held a reception for their recent works, a review exhibition, each occupying a section of Student Galleries South. The reception was full of people and it was difficult to really take in the art works as they were perhaps intended to be, with patience or an attentive eye. I’ve always found it difficult to really enjoy the art and usually view receptions as a social event where the goal is to interact more with people than with art. The front stage of the gallery is taken up by the audience, while the art tends to recede into the background.
 
There were, however, a few moments when the water parted and the stars aligned and I was able to sip on a beer beside a friend while together we perused the piece on the wall in front of us. But even so while this was happening there was an odd tension of not knowing whether what we were saying about Mahsan’s painting was right or not, whether we should continue to talk about this one piece or if we should move on to another. At what point should we consider the piece exhausted? Is art exhaustible? Such things as well as all other questions concerning the uncertainty of social engagement filled our minds. A few found their way to our lips and the conversation went on about “earthy tones” and “free expression” for a couple of comfortable minutes. The piece truly was beautiful in my opinion. What interested me most in her art was the hand of the artist. My personal concerns are in large part about the body, and so to see that come out in unique expression from an artist in the way of “style” always fascinates me. I want to see a unique balance between the artist and the surface, and I want to experience the interaction that happened in the creation process, to be able to feel what was on the artist’s mind as they changed what they saw in front of them.

In the previous room I’d seen Thom’s paintings. They showed something similar to Mahsan’s, being also abstract and full of expression. Most of the paint he used were swirls of black on white, though spots of color were dabbed here and there. Besides this there were color fields, more so window panes than blocks. The windows lacked the texture and dimension of the other areas of canvas. I call them window panes rather than windows because they were flat and had a lip around their edges, separating them from the rest of the painting as an area physically, the lip probably resulting from the use of masking tape. The paintings without the window panes would have perhaps been more interesting to me. I loved the gestures elsewhere, but the window panes seemed to be an attempt at color field painting, an experiment which came off as an unpleasant interruption without much function or necessity.
 
Overall the MFA Review impressed me. There were other artists involved as well, but one of the main things which stuck with me after the experience was the contrast between the works of these two. If it weren’t for the windowpanes, perhaps what was strong about Mahsan’s pieces would have been less striking. This bring to light the context of a piece or a body of work, not only in the world and art history, but also in the space it’s presented in.