Slot Machines and Giant Dogs | A Peek into the MFA Illustration Practice 2017 Thesis Exhibition

Last Fri­day, I attend­ed the open­ing of the MFA Illus­tra­tion Prac­tice the­sis exhi­bi­tion at the Mary­land Insti­tute Col­lege of Art (MICA). As an alum of the pro­gram, I’m always fas­ci­nat­ed to see how the the­sis projects turn out. These are mas­sive endeav­ors that take a whole school-year of work (your sec­ond year is ded­i­cat­ed to them), and even longer to plan. To say they’re involved is an understatement.

I had the plea­sure of, in Feb­ru­ary, being a guest crit­ic for the cur­rent the­sis stu­dents, so I was extra curi­ous (and excit­ed!) to see how their projects panned out. And I was not disappointed—the instal­la­tions were at times beau­ti­ful, thought pro­vok­ing, and poignant. They rep­re­sent­ed a unique points of view. And, in keep­ing with the intent of the pro­gram, they help to rede­fine and push the field of illus­tra­tion in new ways.

From slot machines to giant maps to nev­er-end­ing dreams, here’s a peek into look at the 2017 Illus­tra­tion Prac­tice the­sis exhi­bi­tion. (It’s not every­one in the pro­gram.) If you’re local to Bal­ti­more, it’s up until Sun­day, April 9 in MICA Lazarus Center—Riggs and Lei­dy Gal­leries. Go look at the show then get piz­za at Joe Squared. You won’t be dis­ap­point­ed with either.

When you first walk into the space, Jieyu Zhang’s instal­la­tion is one of the first that you see. Her space, which rep­re­sent­ed the most tra­di­tion­al fine art approach, was poignant. The beau­ti­ful, intri­cate­ly detailed paint­ings of birds on silk show­cased birds who had died because of run­ning into win­dows and oth­er human interaction.

Just beyond Jieyu’s instal­la­tion is Luyi Wang’s Reign­ing Heads. Her the­sis, which took the form of a pic­ture book, imag­ines what hap­pens to a dystopi­an soci­ety when they are com­plete­ly self­ish. (Sound famil­iar?) The col­or­ful, abstract images are charm­ing, yes—but don’t let that fool you. From them comes the mes­sage, “Don’t be anoth­er cynic!”

I enjoyed see­ing Luy­i’s col­lage orig­i­nals as well as the addi­tion of papi­er-mâché heads that were “rain­ing” from the ceil­ing. She actu­al­ly had a cou­ple for sale that night and I bought one. It’s at home among my plants.

There’s one room in the gallery that’s made for ani­ma­tion. Win­dow­less and dark, it’s the per­fect place to dis­play mov­ing pic­tures. Dur­ing my the­sis year, the Jun Cen debuted his fan­tas­tic Mutu­al Tun­nels. Sena Kwon used the space for two ani­ma­tions. One fea­tured sequen­tial illus­tra­tions with ani­mat­ed ele­ments. The oth­er was of a sil­hou­et­ted girl who con­tends with a giant cloud/s­nake-like creature.

The presentation—particularly the murals on the wall and blue carpeting—was a wel­come addi­tion. Sena’s beau­ti­ful flo­rals com­ple­ment her project called Ephemer­al Island, which takes the form of a phys­i­cal book. Through it, a girl, Doma, “explores the idea of faith through var­i­ous inter­ac­tions with myth­i­cal beings” and learns how to respect the her­itage of oth­er cul­tures and what they believe.

In the mid­dle of the gallery is Jasjy­ot Singh Hans. He cre­at­ed a series of zines that depict­ed his expe­ri­ences as a gay South Asian man. The sequen­tial works have a pow­er­ful voice. I’ve met Jasjy­ot in pass­ing but nev­er had the chance to have a con­ver­sa­tion with him. Despite this, I feel like I already know him after these books, which deal with body image and online rela­tion­ships, among oth­er things.

Adi­ti Damle wel­comes you to her brain through life-sized papi­er-mâché sculp­tures, a giant wall mur­al, and bevy of ceram­ics. They’re strange, yes, but also col­or­ful and invit­ing. You walk between the strange crea­tures and get to know her world—it seems like a delight­ful­ly wacky place to be.

Apt­ly called Say Hel­lo to My Brain, Adi­ti’s project is where she asks ques­tions like “Who am I?” and “Who are you to me?” and the most impor­tant­ly, “Would you like to hug my dog?”

Walk down the stairs from Adi­ti’s instal­la­tion, and you’ll see four more projects. One is Tiffany Lin, who explores the Amer­i­can Dream in a rel­a­tive­ly min­i­mal­ist set­ting. Arranged like a classroom—and com­plete with school desks—she presents her the­sis, Amer­i­can Dream­ing. Tiffany writes, “Amer­i­can Dream­ing is an inves­ti­ga­tion of our nation­al mythol­o­gy through the lens and chances of cir­cum­stance. Draw­ing from per­son­al fam­i­ly ori­gins in the casi­nos of Reno, Neva­da, the objects on dis­play artic­u­late the Dream in its com­plex­i­ty as var­ied states of want and belonging.”

Ele­ments of this are woven through­out her exhi­bi­tion, from the inter­ac­tive slot machine that spits out ran­dom three-word­ed axioms to a small illus­trat­ed book about win­ning the lot­tery. The book (seen here as an ani­mat­ed GIF) was my favorite part of Amer­i­can Dream­ing. It was about what peo­ple would do with their lot­tery win­nings. Some were extrav­a­gant, like buy­ing a fast car, but oth­ers were more prac­ti­cal, such as send­ing your kid to a good school. Your chances of win­ning the lot­tery are very very very small, but peo­ple still find hope in it. (Sounds sim­i­lar to the Amer­i­can Dream.)

Just down the hall from where I first arrived was Emi­ly Joy­ton’s col­or­ful maps lin­ing the wall. They’re sup­ple­ments to her year-long comics called The Dress and Whit­man, which tell the sto­ry of “life expe­ri­ences in ret­ro­spect.” Specif­i­cal­ly, they take place in San Ange­lo, Texas and Mia­mi, Flori­da, where grew up and lived for a num­ber of years, respectively.

The comics have an atti­tude that sums up what I love about auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal sequen­tial work. “This project con­sid­ers how not all buildups are sat­is­fy­ing and not all break­downs are descrip­tive.” Con­tin­u­ing, “Through all the ele­ments of this project I explore dif­fer­ent avenues of sto­ry­telling to reach mem­bers of a diverse audi­ence, con­firm­ing that some expe­ri­ences, no mat­ter how dif­fer­ent the lives of each indi­vid­ual, are universal.”

I left think­ing, among oth­er things: I got­ta get into papier-mâché!