Presenting the Class of 2022 MFA/MA Thesis Presentations and Exhibition
May 09, 2022
The Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies (HFSGS) at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) at Willamette University is excited to present the Class of 2022 MFA/MA Thesis Presentations and 2022 Graduate Thesis Exhibition.
Over the coming weeks, join us in celebrating this outstanding group of graduate candidates—find exhibition information, event scheduling and Zoom links below.
PNCA Graduate Thesis Exhibition
May 26 - June 12
- Maddox Building - 1231 NW Hoyt St
- Flanders - 925 NW Flanders
- Stelo Arts - 412 NW 8th Ave
First Thursday Reception - June 2nd, 5-7pm
PNCA Graduate Thesis Presentations
Thursday, May 5th
HEIDI SCHEIDL
2pm-2:55 // Zoom Link PNCA - Hammer
MA in Critical Studies
Kofmanian Animaladies
In the Alimentary Canal, the Citational Creature wields a double-edged needle (a whisker), grafts Sarah Kofman into Animal (+Mad) Studies, and performs more-than-human relational methodologies.
ERIN BODFISH
3pm-3:55 // Zoom Link PNCA - Hammer
MA in Critical Studies
Ephemeral Body Art as a form of Mourning: A Conversation with Janine Antoni
A discussion of the body as material, and an entry point to understanding the ephemerality of the human experience.
JUSTIN DUYAO
4pm-4:55 // Zoom Link PNCA - Hammer
MA in Critical Studies
The Importance of Staring: On Watchful, Boundless, and Accessible Art Writing
An exploration into a non-conventional approach to art, art writing, and the artworld.
Monday, May 9th
SCOTT W. TALLEY
9am-10:30 - Maddox
MFA in Visual Studies
Ob/ject from Outside of the Box
You alone are the expert on what you experience while intra-acting with art.
ROSALIE LINGO
11am-12:30 - Maddox
MFA in Visual Studies
The Post-America
The Post-America addresses how our society will be remembered once it has dissolved. Themes of capitalism, protest, and queer revolution touch on the past, present, and future of American culture.
HEAVEN-LEIGH CAREY
1-1:55pm // Zoom Link PNCA - Room 413
MA in Critical Studies
Funding Utopia: Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk’s Plot to Colonize Space and Defang Critical Science Fiction
A dissection of critical science fiction, the goals of utopia, and attempts by capitalist billionaires to co-opt space.
TEAGUE NAPIER
2-2:55pm // Zoom Link PNCA - Room 413
MA in Critical Studies
disability notes: _____
surviving as a disabled queer body
SARAH RUSSELL
3-3:55pm // Zoom Link PNCA - Room 413
MA in Critical Studies
Consumption of Girlhood: Deconstructing the Canonized Male Gaze
This thesis will present different visualizations of girlhood and how they were received by the public. It explores topics of art history and the cultural impact of visual art.
ALEXIS NEUMANN
4-4:55pm // Zoom Link :PNCA - Room 413
MA in Critical Studies
Forma Integra: A Disability Theology of Wholeness and Light
This thesis reimagines the fullness of the human experience, exploring light, rose windows, suffering and complexity in relation to the disabled body.
Tuesday, May 10th
ELIZABETH ARZANI
9am-10:30 - Maddox
MFA in Visual Studies
The Curious Distance From Foot to Fingertip
Stories translate histories through traveling form. The spaces between arguments, miscommunications, and repair are the spaces of gaps and transitions - indeterminate distances between here and there.
TANNER LIND
11am-12:30 - Flanders
MFA in Visual Studies
The Astonishment of Being
A series of large scale paintings that explore emergence through abstraction and systematic processes, inviting the viewer to contemplate the nebulous nature of consciousness and bringing an awareness to the feeling of space.
HEIDI SCHEIDL
11am-12:15 - Stelo Arts
MFA in Print Media
The Litterbox of Life
A guided tour of the Familial Order of the Cat’s living tomb: a built environment for interspecies collaborations in life, death, and the spaces in between.
AMELIA SUTHERLAND
12:15-1:30pm - Stelo Arts
MFA in Print Media
Reduced Down to a Number or 3
This is an installation where I will be addressing the arbitrary sizing standard in jeans and its effect on how I view my body.
ERIN BODFISH
1:30-3pm - Maddox
MFA in Visual Studies
To Hold on to Lost Intimacies
A series of objects that have been passed down through a family. They are relics of memory and loss. How does memory operate in the body? How do we find lost intimacies with those that are no longer with us or that we may have never known? This project attempts to pull back the veil of intimacy to find new traces of love, loss, and memory in the body.
CHRISTINA MARTIN
2-3:15pm - Stelo Arts
MFA in Print Media
This Bliss in Being a Glitch
Taking pleasure in existing as you are. Considering my own intersectionality and alternative identity within a binary society.
ISABEL CAMPOS BEDARD
3:15-4:30pm - Stelo Arts
MFA in Print Media
Finding Comfort in The Crisis
An intersectional Tropical Glow Baby identity combined with moments of comfort as I embark on breaking down my own adoption trauma rooted identity crisis.
KATHERINE CURRY
3:30-5pm - Flanders
MFA in Visual Studies
Come Sit With Me
Come Sit With Me is a personal exploration of grief, breaking learned patterns and intergenerational cycles of behavior, and identity after the loss of all immediate family. The work is a series of domestic and vernacular art featuring canvas family photograph quilts, wooden doily tapestries, and a durational video exploring “labors of love.”
Wednesday, May 11th
ILSA PAYNE
9am-10:30 - Maddox
MFA in Visual Studies
To Float, To Unravel
A series of large, abstract paintings explore the terrain of ambiguous spaces, offering the viewer a site to consider ideas of a fluid and fragmented reality.
MCKENZIE JEROFKE
11am-12:30 - Maddox
MFA in Visual Studies
Threads that Bind Us
Threads that Bind Us uses fiber art, installation and animation work to explore concepts around rural identity, gender, queerness and the body.
CASSIE FERGUSON
11am-12:15 - Stelo Arts
MFA in Print Media
Portals
When I skate, my mind and body harmonize with the physical architecture to bring focus to the very moment I am part of. This moment is my spirituality.
RAYN SINGREE
12:15-1:30pm - Stelo Arts
MFA in Print Media
re: grief
A portrait of grief in prints and words, created to allow space in our lives for understanding and living with it.
SAI WASHBURN
1:30-3pm - Flanders
MFA in Visual Studies
Ecclesiastes
"Everything is utterly meaningless!" Contemplating meaning and purpose in life at the intersection of Nihilism and Theology.
TEAGUE NAPIER
2-3:15pm - Stelo Arts
MFA in Print Media
h o m e i s . . .
a space for me, and a space for the rest of the world : an act of mourning and an act of resiliency
MARGEAUX MELLOT
3:15-4:30 pm - Stelo Arts
MFA in Print Media
On the invisible Labour of Mothers, Memes and Microbes
The creation of “Fun Times Crying Paper” – Exploring the journey of the artist in learning how to use humor, intuition, grief and more to share information and create meaningful bridges between people and the planet.
ROB SUMMERLIN
3:30-5pm - Flanders
MFA in Visual Studies
Playing with Discomfort
Video performances explore nontraditional mindfulness activities that play with physical discomfort in natural spaces.
INBAR SOFFER SHARON
5-5:50pm - Zoom link // PNCA Mediatheque
MA in Design Systems
Conceiving Queer: Toward an Equitable Future
Can we design a better Trying To Conceive experience for queer couples? A discovery of inclusive design interventions for a space that is organized around the heterosexual.
AMEENAH CARROLL
6-6:50pm - Zoom link // PNCA Mediatheque
MA in Design Systems
Flourishing The Free Food Network
My focus is to help reduce hunger in Portland, Oregon: Enhancing resources for marginalized BIPOC communities, increasing hunger awareness, and strengthening community collaboration.
MADDY SILBERGER-FRANEK
7-7:50pm - Zoom link // PNCA Mediatheque
MFA in Collaborative Design
Public Spaces for Mental Health: Tools for acknowledging mental health through design
My installation, toolkit, and primer illustrate the many ways in which the spaces of our cities both are influenced by and impact mental health. This is done through a combination of audio recording, paper cut-outs and posters.
Thursday, May 12th
ELENA FERRY
10am-11:30 - Maddox
MFA in Applied Craft + Design
Belonging and Belongings
Illustrated memory boxes for three individuals based on their stories. This work focuses on themes of home, memory, and interpersonal relationships using nature imagery.
ALEX STONE
12pm-1:30 - Maddox
MFA in Applied Craft + Design
Sucker Punch: Sparring with Chronic Pain
A soft sculpture set and garment collection about living with chronic pain in a woman’s body and learning to regain control from what trauma took.
TREY
1:30-3pm - Maddox
MFA in Visual Studies
Certificate of Presence
This is a place of play. Surrounding the space with Light and Reflection, I aim to evoke a mindset of fun and collaboration in a space that is built for visual and lens participation. I ask that you take as many photos as you can, look at the space through your lens or phone and experience, and document the ephemeral.
JULIA MORGANS
2pm-3:30 - Flanders
MFA in Applied Craft + Design
Bygone Sensibilities
How we dress ourselves and interact with our clothing can be paralleled by the way we form and navigate inter/intrapersonal relationships.
OLIVER MYHRE
3:30-5pm - Flanders
MFA in Visual Studies
Queer Illuminations
Research and making-based process which investigates the connections between Medieval and contemporary culture and the presence of alternative identities and queerness within both.
Friday, May 13th
HOLLI DOUGAN
10am-11:30 - Maddox
MFA in Applied Craft + Design
Hidden in Plain Sight
An allegorical world that explores mental health issues through character design, illustration, sculpture, and visual storytelling.
ROBERT MACIEL
12pm-1:30 - Flanders
MFA in Applied Craft + Design
On Picnics
The picnic basket as post-pandemic ritual object.
AMIRAH CHATMAN
1:30pm-3:30 - Flanders
MFA in Visual Studies
This Place
A combination of soft sculpture, chalk drawing and installation culminate the pursuit to visualize where my loved ones have gone, and where we will go. This is a Place that time can’t touch; a Place where we’re free to Be as we Are. Themes of impermanence, healing, turbulence and a skewed perception of self motivate every piece.
ALEXIS NEUMANN
3:30-5pm - Maddox
MFA in Visual Studies
Into Resplendence & Light
A sound and light art installation about the inherent wholeness of bodily complexity through illuminated rose windows, vocal performance, and kaleidoscopic shadows.