The School of Art & Design invites you to virtually visit exhibitions from Master of Fine Arts students Feliks Pyron, Olivia Oddo, Erin McCarty and Tyler Stonestreet.
The exhibitions serve as the four graduating seniors final thesis project.
Pyron’s exhibition, “The Museum of Queer Curiosities,” is an exemplary representation of the new approaches behind this year’s MFA shows, with the gallery intended to be transformed into a “queer curiosity” based museum, that questions the ideals of normalcy in the public eye and specifically within institutions. Pyron uses many different techniques, primarily printmaking and mixed-media sculpture, to fill the galleryspace and spark confusion and wonder in the public.
Oddo’s work is an array of intense geometric paintings. Oddo’s creative practice deals with mental illness and is intended to cultivate public awareness of how mental illnesses are perceived. Oddo’s application of bright colors, sharp lines and fragmented areas within the paintings allude to the delicacy and dissolution that mental health issues receive.
McCarty is primarily a ceramicist, but her assemblage of objects that make up her installations include many other materials as well. She draws upon her surrounding environment for influences behind her work, and that repetition is a leading source of inspiration in her creations. The array of colorful objects that make up her otherworldly immersive environments are extremely vivid and are drawn from McCarty’s cultural experiences. She travelled to both China and Italy in her BFA and MFA careers, and has drawn upon these memorable experiences to create fantastic environments.
“Much like a midwestern garden, or a landscape in a fantasy novel, the goal is to create an immersive installation for the viewer to experience,” McCarty said. “This installation serves to share the endless fantasies of my creative mind, as well as to provide a distraction from the normalcy and mundanity of everyday life.”
Stonestreet takes inspiration from artistic and cultural rituals observed in his travel to China and South America.“My work consists of [ceramic] sets that serve to promote companionship, celebration, implementation of ritualization and serve as objects associated with intimate moments.” Tyler uses these connections made through travel to inform his work, promoting communication and intimate moments.