{"id":75024,"date":"2020-10-09T10:00:09","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T14:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/?p=75024"},"modified":"2022-08-02T14:04:05","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T18:04:05","slug":"mfa-painting-grads-bring-first-exhibition-to-renovated-art-gallery","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/news\/articles\/2020\/mfa-painting-grads-bring-first-exhibition-to-renovated-art-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"MFA Painting Grads Bring First Exhibition to Renovated Art Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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New doors, new walls, new light-sensitive windows opening the space up to Commonwealth Ave. The Stone Gallery at Boston University Art Galleries<\/a> is re-opened to the BU community after a year offline for renovations, and the first show in the revamped space is a celebration of CFA’s own. Painting alums from the Class of 2020, whose time on-campus was cut short in the spring due to the pandemic, have their work on view this month. The show will then travel to Ortega y Gasset Projects in New York City at the end of the month, a professional launch for the alumni.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The CFA School of Visual Arts’ MFA Painting program, ranked #6 in Painting and Drawing programs nationally in US News & World Report, also collaborated on a website<\/a> in the spring to showcase the work of the Class of 2020.<\/p>\n

The class of 2020 includes fifteen artists who use oil and acrylic paint, drawing, animation, papermaking, photography, casting, and even cultivate fungi, among their processes. “Some tell stories, visualizing histories that have been erased,” says Professor of Art and Chair of Graduate Studies in Painting Josephine Halvorson<\/a>. “Others picture post-apocalyptic futures or allude to ancient symbols of life and language. For others, sensation is prioritized, where the mediumistic quality of paint traces interior worlds, rendering them tactile and proximate. For many, their work exists in response to real-time events and the shifting sociopolitical landscape. Definitions and re-definitions of globalization, gender, humor, and health are inscribed into the surfaces of these artworks, graphically, and in full color.”<\/p>\n

As is to be expected from a year that has turned the world on its head, 2020 has been a challenging time for the newest graduates. Halvorson reflected on the students’ resiliency as artists during this difficult year. “Courageously, they have insisted on clear-eyed critical thinking,” says Halvorson. “They have followed their education through, forging new ways to create and sustain community and practice. They have shown that to make art is to make sense of the world, no matter how complex it is, envisioning a future through making.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Can’t make it in to see the exhibition? Check out the virtual gallery walk-through.<\/a><\/p>\n