Sculptural works. Mixed-media installations. Video. Printmaking. Portraiture. Pop Up/Illustrated Books. Photography. The works in MIAD’s fifth annual Foundations Juried Exhibition are as strong and varied as the voices of the artists and designers who created them.
On view through April 28 in MIAD’s East Gallery, the exhibition is the first since Foundations faculty, led by Chair Jason S. Yi, reinvented the first-year curriculum.
“I was surprised and impressed by the caliber and diversity of the work,” said juror katie e. martin ’01, artist and faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, at the exhibition’s opening reception and announcement of award winners.
Having spent over four hours selecting 47 works from among 230 submissions, martin said, “What I see here is not student or project work, but the work of individual artists.”
Before announcing the award winners, martin said, “The work that stood out was work done by individual artists and designers with their own voice, making their own decisions.”
“The decisions represented here reflect smart ones – part calculated and conscious, and part unconscious and believed in. And when there is that belief, there is the magic.”
– katie e. martin ’01
Kelly Gratton received the first-place award for her painting created in Mark Dziewior’s Portraiture class.
“The color was amazing,” said martin. “Every inch of the page was thought out. This did not look like student work. It has a life and a spark that cannot be named, but that I kept coming back to. In a year or two, I would push to have this artist’s work in a major gallery in Milwaukee.”
Rachel Topf received the second place award for the illustrated book “Fallen,” created in the Pop-Up Design course taught by Christiane Grauert.
“This work had a beautiful voice in both written and visual language,” said martin, “with unbelievable craft and care and execution.”
Two students received third place awards. Caitlyn Rooney was selected for her illustration of torso and arms on raw canvas, created in the Research, Practice and Methods course – Social Consciousness: People and Environment, taught by Corbett Toomsen.
Katy Martin was honored for her video re-contextualization, created in the Introduction to Advanced Studies course Time-Based Media, Sampling, Organizing and Representing Reality, taught by Jamal Currie.
Yi described the reinvented year as tremendous, and a tribute to all the students and faculty in the Foundations program.
