April 17–May 16 & May 22–23, 2015
Opening: April 17, 6–8pm
MFA Colloquium: May 4 & May 6, 6:30pm
Visual Arts Center
Department of Art and Art History
The University of Texas at Austin
Art Building
23rd and Trinity Streets
T +1 512 232 2348
The Department of Art and Art History at The University of Texas at Austin presents AGREE TO DISAGREE, an exhibition showcasing the work of seven studio artists completing their Master of Fine Arts degrees. The work will be on display at the Visual Arts Center (VAC) April 17–May 16, and will open again for commencement weekend, May 22–23. An opening reception honoring the artists will be held Friday, April 17, from 6 to 8 pm. The MFA Colloquium, a two-night series of artist gallery talks, will take place May 4 and 6 at 6:30pm.
The culmination of an intensive three-year program of work, AGREE TO DISAGREE features artworks made in a variety of media including drawing, painting, print, photography, installation, and video. These seven artists use their work to explore the world around them—to connect, describe, communicate, and question. Their works explore a diversity of themes including awesome scale, the psychology of games, our culture’s secret messages to young girls, a human reinterpretation of the digital, the legibility of abstraction, and even…cybernetics.
About the MFA program
Over their course of study, MFA students work closely with department faculty to fine-tune existing skill sets and develop new approaches, both conceptual and technical, to their studio practice. In a challenging interdisciplinary environment, students often work across media and in close collaboration with one another, exploring the potential overlaps and depths of established disciplines. The department’s visiting artist and critic program brings acclaimed professionals from outside the university into graduate studios. As part of the diverse intellectual community that makes up The University of Texas at Austin, students have access to resources across campus allowing for a richly informed approach to art making.
About the Department of Art and Art History
The UT Austin Department of Art and Art History is one of the largest and most diverse in the country. It includes the divisions of Art Education, Art History, Design, and Studio Art. Fifty full-time faculty and numerous part-time faculty oversee the education of about 500 undergraduate and 130 graduate students; 21 full-time Studio Art faculty work closely with the program’s 26 graduate art students. The faculty proudly celebrate these seven artists whose culminating exhibition, AGREE TO DISAGREE, completes their graduate education.
About the artists
Peter Abrami (Florida) paints colorful abstract paintings that teeter on the edge of anthropomorphism. A single form flips between formalism and character atop each painting’s colorful matte ground.
Georgia Carter (Texas) creates enormous drawings by “impersonating” an inkjet printer, starting at the top left, carefully moving to top right, back and forth down the paper. The resulting images are soft and enveloping.
Leah Dyjak (Massachusetts) applies logic to understand the mysterious actions of an eccentric. The precision of her luscious photographic imagery reveals beauty that coexists beside the unknowable.
Nick Francel (Missouri) invents stylized cartoony characters that exist on a game board in an immersive built environment into which the viewer can enter.
Aaron Meyers (Pennsylvania) builds an architectural installation in which a to-scale portion of the French visionary architect, Étienne-Louis Boullée’s, Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton, intersects with the gallery.
Laurel Shear (California) paints abstract and figurative paintings. Her combination of beguiling and repulsive images and colors make for a rich, complex read.
Ryan White (California) creates a series of paintings that coincide with auditing sessions he has received at the Church of Scientology. The artist makes these paintings before and after his auditing sessions.
