Boston University School of Visual Arts Announces 2025 MFA Thesis Exhibitions
The shows celebrate the works of graduating students in BU's Graphic Design, Painting, Sculpture, Print Media & Photography, and Visual Narrative graduate programs.
Boston University School of Visual Arts Announces 2025 MFA Thesis Exhibitions
The 2025 MFA Thesis Exhibitions celebrate the works of graduating students in BU’s Graphic Design, Painting, Sculpture, Print Media & Photography, and Visual Narrative graduate programs.
Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts proudly presents the Class of 2025 Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Thesis exhibitions, on view from April 8-19 (MFA Painting runs April 29 – May 18). The exhibitions feature works by graduating students in BU’s Graphic Design, Painting, Sculpture, Print Media & Photography, and Visual Narrative graduate programs.
The 2025 MFA thesis exhibitions at BU School of Visual Arts mark a pivotal transition for graduating students, launching them into a sustained professional practice with collaboration, research, experimentation, and critique skills under their belt.
“The work presented by SVA’s MFA students in Graphic Design, Painting, Sculpture, Print Media & Photography and Visual Narrative reflects not only the rigorous training and conceptual development fostered at BU, but also each artist’s ability to engage through their medium with the world around them,” says Marc Schepens, Director of BU School of Visual Arts and Senior Lecturer in Art, Painting. “The work we see represents two years of collaborative dialogue with faculty, peers, and critics.”
The 2025 Boston University School of Visual Arts MFA Thesis Exhibitions are free and open to the BU community and the general public.
Situated within the College of Fine Arts’ rich artistic community—one that, in turn, is embedded in Boston’s vibrant artistic community—the exhibition serves as a bridge to the broader art world, where these emerging artists will continue refining their voices, building networks, and navigating the complexities of sustaining a creative life. Rather than an endpoint, this exhibition marks the beginning of a lifelong commitment to artmaking, one that will evolve through experience, risk, and dedication.
-Marc Schepens, BU School of Visual Arts Director; Senior Lecturer in Art, Painting
MFA Graphic Design and MFA Print Media & Photography
Exhibition Dates: April 8 – 19, 2025
808 Gallery • 808 Commonwealth Avenue (first floor)
Reception: Friday, April 11, 5-8 pm
MFA Graphic Design Exhibiting Students
manjing • Hangi Cho • Jason Dong • Ghazaleh Farrokhi • BRADY george • Lauren Greenblatt • Wenbin Huang • Yuhong (Rainbow) Hui • Ruoshui Liu • Caitlin Lu • Neve Luo • Amanda Mundy • Lucy Purvis • Xiuqi (Vea) Ran • Micaela Sato • Maidha Salman • Xinran Wang • Niharika Yellamraju • Jingyi Zhang • Xuru (Chichi) Zhao
MFA Print Media & Photography Exhibiting Students
Shannon Johnson • Jason Parent • Jerry Rodríguez Sosa • Susan Swirsley • Tung Lin Tsai
MFA Sculpture and MFA Visual Narrative
Exhibition Dates: April 8 – 19, 2025
Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery • 855 Commonwealth Avenue (first floor)
Reception: Friday, April 11, 5-8 pm
MFA Sculpture Exhibiting Students
Joseph Metrano • Maithili Rajput • Ziwei (Helen) Sun
MFA Visual Narrative Exhibiting Students
Francis Bordeleau • Gabriel Joy Reid • Sam Roberts • Jade Rodriguez • George Zachary
MFA Painting
Exhibition Dates: April 29 – May 18, 2025
Location: Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery • 855 Commonwealth Avenue (first floor)
Reception: Friday, May 2, 5-8 pm
MFA Painting Exhibiting Students
Sam Bittaker • Adel DiPersio • J Grace Giordano • Nasiri Guzman • Ivo Makianich • Andrea Manning • Sylvie Mayer • Dylan Foster Mintz • Miranda Pikul • Lemuel Eliasaph Saputra • Hannah Stoll • Noah Wertheimer
Faculty Advisors, Chairs, and Collaborators
Lynne Allen, Professor of Art, Printmaking, Chair of MFA Print Media & Photography • Kristen Coogan, Associate Professor of Art, Chair of MFA Graphic Design • Deborah Cornell, Professor of Art, Chair of BFA Printmaking • Joel Christian Gill, Associate Professor of Art, Chair of MFA Visual Narrative • Rina Goldfield, Lecturer in Art, Painting; Interim Co-chair MFA Painting • JM Howey, Assistant Professor of Art, Painting; Interim Co-chair MFA Painting • E.E. Ikeler, Lecturer in Art, Painting • Toni Pepe, Assistant Professor of Art, Chair of Photography • Marc Schepens, Director, School of Visual Arts; Senior Lecturer in Art, Painting • Christopher Sleboda, Associate Professor of Art, Chair of BFA Graphic Design • E Tubergen, Assistant Professor of Art, Sculpture • Lissa Cramer, Director, Boston University Art Galleries
more on sva’s mfa thesis shows
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Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally recognized institution of higher education and research. With more than 34,000 students, it is the fourth-largest independent university in the United States. BU consists of 17 schools and colleges, along with a number of multi-disciplinary centers and institutes integral to the University’s research and teaching mission. In 2012, BU joined the Association of American Universities (AAU), a consortium of 62 leading research universities in the United States and Canada. Learn more at bu.edu.
Established in 1954, Boston University College of Fine Arts (CFA) is a community of artist-scholars and scholar-artists who are passionate about the fine and performing arts, committed to diversity and inclusion, and determined to improve the lives of others through art. With programs in Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts, CFA prepares students for a meaningful creative life by developing their intellectual capacity to create art, shift perspective, and think broadly. CFA offers a wide array of undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs, as well as a range of online degrees and certificates. Learn more at bu.edu/cfa.
Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts prepares students to think seriously, to see critically, to make intensely, and to act with creative agency in the contemporary world. The School of Visual Arts merges the intensive studio education of an art school with the opportunities of a large urban university, and is committed to educating the eye, hand, and mind of the artist. With rigorous graduate and undergraduate fine art programs that are rooted in studio practice, CFA School of Visual Arts provides highly motivated students with programs in the bedrock disciplines, of the fine arts coupled with a vast array of electives and liberal arts opportunities.