MFA Candidate Spotlight: Ally Christmas

Ally Christmas, Metadreaming, 2018

The Georgia Museum of Art will soon host the annual Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates exit show. The exhibition will display the creative works of 16 students slated to graduate from the Lamar Dodd School of the Art in May. This week, we continue to spotlight a few of these unique artists with information on Ally Christmas.

Christmas hails from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., where her artistic journey began during high school. She went on to study analog photography during her undergraduate years at the University of Virginia. After graduation, Christmas spent the following year working on her own pieces and mentoring other students.

She found herself intrigued by the University of Georgia’s interdisciplinary master of fine arts program and soon took the plunge into the American South. “The southern culture here is just so much more welcoming,” she says of her experience in Athens, a place she has come to be inspired by and love.

Christmas’ choices of medium and style have continued to evolve in this open environment. Analog photography has given way to video and digital imagery, which she is excited to present at the MFA exit show. Christmas’ contributions to the show will be a central video piece accompanied by digitally created imagery. Through these works, she conveys “the return of the ‘real’ through the glitches or errors in a work of art.”

Christmas hopes viewers will find themselves in the digital sphere through her work. The layers crossed to enter this mindset, she says, will cause the audience to consider what connects them to the world within the screen.

Whether these layers are of the self, multiple selves or both is a question Christmas has explored throughout her MFA. Her video and digital imagery pieces will lead the audience deep within her question and, perhaps, to its answer. The question may be personal, but it will easily inspire the viewer to wander a similar path.

To see Christmas’ work, along with that of all the other MFA candidates, you can visit the exit show, on view April 7 – May 20, 2018.

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Savannah Guenthner

Intern, Department of Communications

MFA Candidate Spotlight: Kaleena Stasiak

Kaleena Stasiak, eternal return, 2018

The Georgia Museum of Art will soon host the annual Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates exit show. The exhibition will display the creative works of 16 students slated to graduate from the Lamar Dodd School of the Art in May. This week, we continue to spotlight a few of these unique artists with information on Kaleena Stasiak.

Kaleena Stasiak grew up near Niagara Falls before moving to Toronto, where she received her bachelor’s degree in printmaking from the Ontario College of Art and Design. She then found herself drawn to the interdisciplinary nature of the master of fine arts program at the University of Georgia. She continued her studies in printmaking and book arts, but has recently ventured into more three-dimensional works made of ceramics, wood and foam. Her works in the upcoming MFA Degree Candidates exit show will mainly feature the latter two categories.

Through her work, Stasiak responds to the history of the South and how that history is represented today. Southern architecture and domestic objects tell the story of “us,” a fact readily seen in her art. From hand turning spindles to carving foam, Stasiak’s works evidence a beautiful and intriguing foray into Southern material culture. Her own adventure, a perpetual learning experience, takes viewers into the world of the South, turning truths the audience might take for granted on their heads.

Stasiak is “curious about exploring . . . how tourism is marketed in the South,” and, as she recognizes her own tendency to romanticise the South, she “also wants to subvert then call into question things that are glossed over.”

As she plays with key architectural and material tropes, she leads the viewer to appreciate and simultaneously question southern romanticism. Viewers will certainly leave her portion of the exit show considering familiar local buildings and heirloom furniture in a new light.

To see Stasiak’s work, along with that of all the other MFA candidates, you can visit the exit show, on view April 7 – May 20, 2018.

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Savannah Guenthner

Intern, Department of Communications

MFA Candidate Spotlight: Deepanjan Mukhopadhyay

Deepanjan Mukhopadhyay, Code Switching, 2017

The Georgia Museum of Art will soon host the annual Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates exit show. The exhibition will display the creative works of 16 students slated to graduate from the Lamar Dodd School of the Art in May. Over the next three weeks, we will spotlight a few of these unique artists with information on their artistic journeys and processes.

UGA master of fine arts degree candidate Deepanjan Mukhopadhyay calls Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, home. Mukhopadhyay received his undergraduate degree in photography at Louisiana Tech. He continues to create art in the visual realm but has expanded beyond a single medium.

Today, he sees “forms as a result of concepts,” concepts he portrays in his installation work. The one photographic image within his installation at the MFA exit show is simply another material. More often, his “gestures are . . . in terms of readymades or assisted readymades.” Many of his materials are products you could buy, such as an LCD monitor or light fixture. He makes these standard objects new via their placement.

The context of the objects’ placement, and of Mukhopadhyay himself as he creates, define his work. In past installations, he took on heady topics such as post-colonialism. His inspiration for this show includes labor—specifically his labor as an artist—within institutional spaces.

“Maybe,” he suggests, “the white walls around me are what influenced me to make the work.” The inherent structure of his context influences his works but does not detract from the joy he finds in creating. “I find it funny, and I find joy in making these pieces,” says Mukhopadhyay, which is part of what he wishes to evoke in his audience.

Mukhopadhyay creates his installations with certain perspectives and intentions, but he hopes the audience will take it from there. When you walk through his installations, allow yourself to notice the sensations and think about the space as a shared, interactive experience.

To see Mukhopadhyay's work, along with that of all the other MFA candidates, you can visit the exit show, on view April 7 – May 20, 2018.

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Savannah Guenthner
Intern, Department of Communications