Tuesday, May 08, 2012


For Immediate Release
April 26, 2012
Contacts: Jewell Watson, 301-405-2763 or jwatson4@umd.edu

2012 Masters of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition welcomes six candidates at The Art Gallery
May 10, 2012 – May 25, 2012   

COLLEGE PARK, MD. – University of Maryland’s The Art Gallery proudly presents an exhibition showcasing the work of six Master of Fine Arts candidates from the Department of Art Masters of Fine Arts program. The works exhibited by this year’s 2012 MFA Exhibition candidates Selin Balci, Michael Booker, Felicia Glidden, Pete Karis, Adam Nelson, and Alex Peace represent the culmination of their studies and their artistic development during their time at the University of Maryland. Below are extracts from the artists’ statements, highlighting the philosophies and methodologies involved in creating their work:

Washington D.C. based installation artist, Selin Balci, uses simple living organisms in her artwork. Balci applies an acute scientific laboratory practice to create her art works where she is constantly discovering and combining the scientific material and mediums. Her work is process-based and is focused on interactions and transformations.
Growing up in a family of quilt makers, Michael Booker’s investigation of quilt making has led to the abstracting of its’ ideals to cross the line from craft to fine art. By breaking it down to its' simplest form, fragments of memories, he is able to use the language of quilt making to reflect on issues and experiences that occur within families and communities.

Felicia Glidden dreams in vivid color. Her thesis installation Divination Method fractures light and space on a permeable architectural sculpture. By projecting images through paper and steel inside of a soundscape, this work explores the unseen as clearly visible. She incites metaphor as divination, memory, and the internal landscape. Her research involves journaling dreams, and roaming Europe and the US looking at art and icons of Mary. The sound score evokes the mystery of visitation and pilgrimage through a series of dream narratives.

Pete Karis looks at the process of art making as a type of evolution of thoughts, ideas, techniques and outcomes. While most of his work has been kinetic or machine based, he now uses those machines and ideas to generate new work that is not entirely kinetic. His artwork is influenced by living in areas where industry, wastefulness, and the destruction of architecture impact every aspect of life. While these concerns are a starting point, his work generally incorporates these influences with humor and an air of absurdity intended to act as a counterbalance of the more serious connotations that can be interpreted.

Adam Nelson uses plastic materials, light, and heat, to fabricate installations of erratic energy. As vehicles for the transfer and exchange of matter and energy in the world, tumultuous phenomena occur naturally or through human agency with infinite degrees of scale. Their aftermath brings about a sense of leveling in terms of their physical and cultural impact. By emulating characteristics of instability within the confines of the studio, he is able to exploit the mildness of controlled space with fixed volatility.

Alex Peace is an artist who believes in painting the moment when the historic and the autobiographic collapse within a single frame. He is driven by the creative process as well as his practice of research into the antiquity of objects and the effects of their authenticity.  
The public opening reception for 2012 MFA Thesis Exhibition will be held on Thursday, May 10 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The exhibition will be open to the public through Friday, May 25, 2012. The Art Gallery will be open to the public on Monday, May 21 during the University of Maryland’s various commencement ceremonies. The Art Gallery is located at 2202 Art-Sociology Building on the University of Maryland College Park campus. Please visit www.artgallery.umd.edu or call 301-405-2763 for more information.