[EXHIBITION] 2015 MFA EXHIBITIONS

Square - 2015 MFA v3

Jelly Beans-E  EXHIBITION

2015 MFA THESIS EXHIBITIONS
January 18 – February 13, 2015
The Art Gallery at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

exhibition views

The graduate program at the Department of Art + Art History, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa is a comprehensive and diverse center for the graduate study of the visual arts and Asian and Pacific art history. The exciting thesis exhibitions are part of a demanding course of study, production, and review. MFA candidates concurrently present new and engaging works that demonstrate each artist’s caliber of ideas, skills, awareness of the global context within which art is created and circulated, and critically engaged artistic practice. The artists and their areas of specialization are: Jennifer Chua (ceramics) and Tom Walker (painting). Each artist’s work is presented in a separate section of the gallery.

Sunday, January 18
3:00 – 5:00 pm, Reception
Music by Sunrise Quartet
Musicians: Aisha Kadomatsu, violin; Romee Gaoiran, violin;
Tyler Katsura, viola & violin; Daniel Lucas, cello.
The Art Gallery at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

Friday, January 30
Gallery walk-throughs with the artists; reception
1:00 pm, Jennifer Chua, Always Petal by Petal
2:00 pm, Tom Walker, Sequence
2:30 – 3:30 pm, Reception
The Art Gallery at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

ARTIST STATEMENTS:

Jennifer Chua presents Always Petal by Petal, an installation of glass and porcelain
I have been reflecting upon the nature of productivity, and the nuanced relationship between effort and value. As part of this investigation on what “counts” as work, I have been repeating a single small gesture: one hand gently presses into the other with a minimal amount of porcelain, leaving a faint impression of a simple, discrete act. An accumulated mass of thousands of delicate porcelain pieces created through the same soothing, repetitive process, Always Petal by Petal is an affirmation that small actions can have big impact.

Tom Walker presents Sequence, a series of acrylic paintings
Sequence is a series of acrylic paintings that are directly influenced by our perceptions of color and depth from digital mediums. By utilizing chromostereopsis, a phenomenon in optics that can only occur on a flat surface and gives the illusion of depth through unique chromatic relationships, this body of work bridges the notions of depth and flatness within contemporary painting and demonstrates the influence that digital mediums play on these impressions.