MINNEAPOLIS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN

Congratulations to all the hard working individuals who were apart of the 2013 MFA class, at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. The work that had been shown was spectacular in every sense. The opening night was a success, with great feedback for those who are graduating and moving forward in their careers as [...]

Minneapolis, MN— The Minneapolis College of Art and Design is pleased to present the culminating exhibition of graduating Master of Fine Arts candidates. Presenting a variety of disciplines including: information graphics, painting comics, animation, illustration, sculpture, and graphic design, the exhibition will feature work by 23 artists and designers. This exhibition is the result of [...]

My intention is to convert aspects of abstract art into abstract graphic design and in doing so, represent the abstraction of sub-conscious thoughts as logical expressions. This gesture has become the essence of my project “Expressensory” (from expressive + sensory). It is important to my graphic design goals, as I would like to improve my [...]

For me, painting is a vantage point: a position from which to see, contemplate, understand, and eventually create. Painting allows me to question not only myself, but also the world around me. It allows me the opportunity to negotiate preexisting and current definitions of who and what we are, and what reality is. Painting has [...]

Within my practice I have been focusing on the supposed ‘purpose’ of objects that make up our environment. This purpose I define as the point at which the use of the object and the function of an object intersect.  Although use and function are interrelated, they are not necessarily the same thing. Juhani Pallasmaa stated [...]

I consider myself to be the result of a cultural cross-pollination. Coming from China, but studying and living in the United States, I have developed an extended sensibility for the nuances of the social needs of my generation. Anyone who has read the news, knows that this is a pivotal time for Chinese people, and [...]

My paintings are formed through my delight in material exploration, yet are nudged by my memories of places and events from my past.  Instead of being rich depictions of what actually occurred, as I paint, my memories become flattened, transitioning into a low-quality image that is similar to a jpeg that has been saved over [...]

Through interacting and participating in community, the developing experience brings deeper insights that foster unlimited creativity. It is not the intellectual justification that I focus on in my practice, but rather my real concerns – not academics or art style, but the interest in existentialist condition. It is about the intersubjective real – the two [...]

For me, design is a rational task. My approach is almost scientific, and this kind of work cannot succeed without extreme patience as well as attention to detail.  Normally, I begin one project on paper, then digitize it through the use of various software. Starting this process on paper is important because it allows for [...]

I seek a field of discovery, one that requires inquiry as opposed to drawing conclusions. It is not so much a practice as it is a way of life, a way of approaching the world determined to translate its subtleties, exchanges, and tendencies on my own terms. I want to expose the essence of communication, [...]

My design practice is largely focused on using both emerging and experimental technologies to address sustainability issues and to create social design. My work is focused on the harmful effects of disposable or single use plastics. NO AWAY; An Awareness Campaign about Plastic Consumption has implications for my growth and development in this area well [...]

I was a shy suburban kid in the late 1980’s, and early 1990’s, when comic books became my escape. I was always fascinated by superhero comics such as X-MEN, due to the over inflatedness and audacity they seemed to embrace. I also marveled at the cinematic, and kinetic way in which these stories were visualized, [...]

The application of paint can reflect and represent allusions to the human body and especially the skin in painting. The surface of the painting can act as a representation of the skin of ideas — as a reflection of change and flux that also can happen on the skin of the body. Paint dries in [...]

My current work is fueled by many different engines; beginning with my interest in children’s building toys and their transparent construction techniques, which allows the child the ability to easily manipulate the systems into infinite manifestations. As my undergraduate studies were focused within the discipline of industrial design, this fascination honed my practice by emphasizing the [...]

A studio practice is the site where my search for meaning becomes physical.  Through the act of making work, the intangible can be dragged into the physical world in order to investigate it more profoundly. My encounters with specific places are distilled into their most essential insights and, through process and manipulation, these insights are [...]

I am a musician and new media artist who uses sound and performance as the primary modalities within my practice. I performs regularly around the country and was featured at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 2004. My duet, Ostracon, performed at the In/Out Festival in New York, September, 2010. I composed and performed the music [...]

The work I do is stylistically inspired by early 20th century newspaper comic-strips and pen and ink illustration. My ongoing investigation of historical illustration techniques has led to my current project that applies these techniques to more contemporary subject matter. While this approach could result in something simply nostalgic, my intention is to explore the [...]

Through a minimalist aesthetic, my installations and sculptures manipulate structural elements within an architecture pushed through the physicality of the environment creating work that alters the stability of a space. The materials that are commonly used in my practice are resin, joint compound, sheetrock, wood, and fabric. These materials are utilized because they allow me [...]

As a painter and image collector, I work with historic figures and symbols of the feminine juxtaposed with my own obsession with self-images of the feminine that are so prevalent in contemporary media. My bulk of my collection is taken from the online source of Thinspiration – a weight loss blog of ‘before and after’ [...]

I was raised in China. About two years ago, I made a life-changing and fantastic decision to come to America and expand my horizons by studying aboard. I feel very lucky that I can pursue my fascination with children’s illustration and children’s picture book creation, while learning from my mentor Nancy Carlson. I want to [...]

“We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves. —— James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Before I came to study art at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, I studied animation at the Communication University of China. I developed [...]

I create collections of what I call ‘visual poems,’ which take the form of sculptural installations. Each arrangement combines provocative artifacts that imply events, emotions, memories or personal associations. As I work, I often set up certain shifting narrative challenges: “Can I make a piece that appears evil? “Can I make a piece that feels [...]

My print and installation work reflects the discomfort I felt as an adolescent growing up in an ultra-conservative Christian environment. From a young age, I was taught that women were the inferior gender. The work of women was to bear children, and therefore we were overlooked for more meaningful work. Through scripture, I understood my [...]

The MCAD MFA Mid-Program reviews are over! One of our fine graphic designers, Huiqian Wu is the first to be featured here on our website. Huiqian is challenging conventional graphic design process in her work. Photoshop is a powerful tool for any graphic designer, but sometimes some functions, such as the presets are under utilized. [...]

Kate Thomas’s book “War on Women” had recently been accepted to the Heart & Hands 2013: A Fourth National Juried Book Art Exhibition for Students. According to Kate: In War on Women, I have compiled phrases repeated about women from a variety of sources into book format. The smudged and blurry text continuously visible, even [...]

Austin-based filmmaker Bradley Beesley has made a cinematic career of documenting oddball Americana, strange subcultures, and homegrown rock stars. Post art school and somewhat damaged, he began drinking moonshine and filming with legendary bluesman R.L. Burnside to make his first movie Hill Stomp Hollar. He has since directed nine feature-length films, including seven documentaries, a [...]

MCAD graduate student and collage artist, Zach Collins is an advent user and has a tremendous amount of followers on Tumblr. Recently Zach was approached by Roni from Bad Jones Rising website to do an in-depth interview, since Roni was a fan of collage art. Zach was thrilled at the idea and was able to [...]

In this annual exhibition, MCAD students at all levels and from all departments put forth their best work. Only a fraction of the 300+ submissions are selected by outside jurors. Ben Heywood, executive director of The Soap Factory, and Dan Ibarra, principal at Aesthetic Apparatus, will have the challenge of selecting work and bestowing four [...]

3M and MCAD have embarked on a semester long workshop to design a new family of products with the singular inspiration of origami. 3M’s Senior Design Manager Christian R. Trifilio and MCAD professor George Mahoney have generated a brief for the class that is challenging the students to design three furniture objects. MCAD’s MFA program [...]

Bui is the co-founder, editor, and publisher of The Brooklyn Rail and the publishing press The Brooklyn Rail Editions, as well as the host/producer of Off the Rail on Art International Radio (AIR), a board member of The Brooklyn Rail, The Miami Rail, The Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation, and the International Association of Art Critics United [...]

The Whittier Gallery showed “Tell Me About Your Mother” this past weekend. The show consisted of work created collaboratively where artists and designers reflected on stories relating to their mothers. The work was as diverse as the MFA students who participated, ranging from paintings to video installation. The event embodied the energy of the Whittier [...]

The Soovac Gallery in Minneapolis is currently showing “Fluctuating Capacity”, a mixed-media installation created by Adam Hamilton (MFA ’14). The install includes various paintings and found objects ranging from bone fragments to disassembled modern technology. Hamilton juxtaposes the antiquated with the contemporary, questioning the viewers perception of time. The implied functionally proposes a false reality [...]

Le Méridien Chambers, the countries first art luxury hotel, annually curates a MCAD show in which second-year MFA candidates are eligible to apply. The exhibit is held in the Burnett Gallery – a beautifully dynamic space in the heart of Minneapolis. This years show is collaborative in that the second year candidates were asked to [...]

Sonnenzimmer is a Chicago-based art and screenprinting studio run by Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi. Beginning as a shared painting studio equipped with industrial screenprinting equipment, the space quickly morphed into a design and print studio where Butcher and Nakanishi specialize in handcrafted posters and design work for some of the city’s most recognized institutions. [...]

OUTPUT is an internationally renown platform based in Amsterdam for design and architecture students. Every year they organize one of the largest design competitions worldwide, this being their 15th edition. Out of about 1000 students that applied 60 were chosen, one of which was Minneapolis of College and Art and Design MFA candidate Shannon McCarthy. [...]

Every year the Walker Art Center selects ten Minnesotan artists to be cognizant of in the upcoming year through their mnartists.blog. This year was rather special in that four of the artist chosen were MCAD alumni, two of which were MFA alumni from the previous year – Lauren Thorson and Lea Sorrentino.

The MFA program had its first open studio night last year, entitled “Show and Tell”, which proved to be a great success. This years the event was entitled “Frank” but don’t let its ambiguity fool you, the event was more expansive than last year with various live performances including the Minneapolis improvisational group DKO (Featuring [...]

For the second consecutive year a designer from the MCAD MFA program has been selected to attend Onlab’s Publication Summer School. Last years topic was entitled a “Chronology of Failure” for which Lauren Thorson was selected as a senior designer. This year the publications theme was “Love, Seduction, and Intimacy in Urban Landscape”, Jasio Stefanski [...]

Originally shown at the XY and Z Gallery in Minneapolis, MN, Vadim Gershman’s (MFA ’12) expansive project entitled “Alternative Cloud Research (ACR)” has traveled to the Hoffman LaChance Gallery in St.Louis, Missouri. The project consists of a series of Google Earth images printed on canvas with spiritual aphorisms overprinted in transparent text. A projection of [...]

If you don’t already know, Buzzfeed is one of the most highly-trafficked alternative news blogs on the web. Adam Setala, MFA candidate ’13, was recently approached to create illustrations for an article entitled “Can You Die From A Nightmare?”. The beautiful results as well as the article can be read here. Setala can be contacted [...]

The MCAD MFA collective COMPOUND’s second annual fall exhibition features art influenced by the idea of the temporary. “Goodbye Moments” is a multidisciplinary visual show that explores the fleeting qualities of contemporary art. Responding to swift changes in popularity fewer artists seem to worry about making work that is concerned with a lasting impression. The [...]

This years Room & Board (RB) competition yielded 24 applicants from which 5  finalists were chosen. The winning design, entitled “Clutch”, was created by Steve Listwon (MFA ’13). “Clutch” could potentially go into production over the next year and would be the first in the competitions 10 year tradition. Listwons’ work utilizes custom connectors paired [...]