Tufts Announces MFA Thesis Exhibition for April

Public Opening Reception: Thursday, April 11, 5:30-8:00pm; Artists’ Talks: 5:00pm

The Tufts University Art Gallery at the Shirley and Alex Aidekman Arts Center presents the second of three MFA Thesis Exhibitions for the 2012-2013 academic year, works by Master of Fine Arts candidates in the joint degree program of Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. This exhibition features artists Ario Elami, Ruohan Hu, Jihee Lee, Chienning Liao, Singha Sihakhom, and Qing Song. Their work will be on view in the Tisch Gallery in the Aidekman Arts Center from April 11 to April 28, with the opening reception on April 11 from 5:30 – 8 pm. The artists will all be present and speak about their work starting at 5 pm.

Ario Elami

“This series of numerous, mostly small-scale works combining text and drawing explores my visual speculations about the event of one’s death and the hopes and fears of a possible afterlife. I reflect upon the implications of infinite existence and experiential entropy from a self-deprecating, cynical point of view.”

Ruohan Hu

“This project is a modern version of Hyakki Yagyo (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons), an illustrated handbook about ghosts and monsters from Japanese and Chinese folklore. Working in a traditionally Asian, graphic style of drawing, I create new, allegorical monsters based on international corporations that have a global impact on daily life. The drawings depict invented stories about these monsters’ interactions with common villagers and their effects on culture and the environment.”

Jihee Lee

“I consider these paintings to be intuitive abstractions of my thoughts and feelings. Fragmentary images mingle and float in pictorial space. These paintings become witnesses to the act of meditation; and as objects, they are a physical record of time and personal memory.”

Chienning Liao

“The Flotsam of Time consists of a sequence of constructed photographic seascapes. These pictures are not real places, but rather imaginary scenes made out of small objects that are not usually given much attention. In this series, I create spaces that are ambiguous, allowing viewers to question what they are looking at. Answers will differ, depending on how much one believes in the illusion of photography.”

Singha Sihakhom

“As an ordained Buddhist monk, I seek to depict in this project the Buddhist term for constant flux and impermanence – anicca – through my own migration from Thailand to the United States. I am also exploring annica through the daily changes that occur in all of our lives, and how we deal with changes in environment, culture, tradition, and forms of communication.”

Qing Song

“‘Cigarette Girls’ is a series of oil paintings based on 1930s and 1940s advertisement posters in Shanghai, China. By re-modeling the female figures and re-painting the advertisements, I explore the contributions of these poster artists, whose work has been largely excluded from the world of fine art. These paintings also reflect on the first generation of modern, urban, professional women in China, and the societal and familial pressures they encountered, as well as my own identity as a young female painter.”

– Information from Tufts University