The ebb and flow of an art community depend on many different factors. For Dallas, academic institutions and their Masters?of Fine Art programs continue to serve as an incubator of growth and evolution for many area artists. As new voices emerge from?universities, it?s an exciting time to highlight a few artists graduating in 2017 who look to shift the course of our city?s artistic dialogue.
Current MFA graduates for 2017, Shelby David Meier, Juan Alberto Negroni, Alison Jardine, Sarah Rachel Larson, and Daniel Martinez?represent a diverse set of artists exploring materials, subject matter, theories, and activation within their individual practices. This list is?a reflection of the dense and varied programs North Texas universities are offering, employing an elasticity within their coursework to produce graduating artists ready to act as agents of change within an evolving and uncertain global arts market. Investigating the fields?of sculpture, conceptual joke-telling, collage painting, ?Post-minimalism pop,? and object remaking, these five artists represent this vast,?complex wave of talent emerging from the region?s graduate programs.
SHELBY DAVID MEIER
As a visual artist, Meier loves telling jokes without having to?explain the punchline. It?s not about being too coy to explain, but?rather, the open-endedness of things, the unexplained as part of the?experience. Meier, an emerging talent within the Dallas community,?applyies humility, sincerity, and actual humor into his practice as?a conceptual artist. While graduating from Southern Methodist?University this spring, Meier already had participated in some of?the community?s most adventurous exhibitions. As a member of the?now defunct Fort Worth collective?s HOMECOMING! Committee,?the group mounted Post Communiqu? at The Dallas Museum of Art?as part of the DallasSITES: Available Space exhibition, where they?collectively constructed a two-story base camp of operations within?the museum and a propaganda machine which encountered the?audience with true/false doctrines, narratives, and histories.?Since entering SMU, Meier has been part of successful group?shows, such as Bring Snack at Pariah Studios and Make Time at?Texas Woman?s University. His thesis show, The Difference Between?a Duck, opened in April at Beefhaus and dealt with notions of?time, paradigms, and inside jokes. ?I was more nervous about the?Beefhaus show than I was for any show I?ve done before, because?it was going to be looked at a lot closer and a lot more critically. I?think more than confidence it felt more like courage.? For Meier,?SMU?s program forced him to think, rethink, and think more about?the why of making, a dynamic perhaps initially uncomfortable that?eventually gave way to self-assurance and resilience. ?I feel like it?takes the experience of being a practicing artist and puts it in turbo?mode. Part of it is you?re pushed to make and think faster than you?are used to or comfortable with, which is great for experimenting?and really working through ideas?good or bad, it doesn?t matter.?You just do it.? During his two years, Meier had to begin to explain?his work in new and varied ways through frequent studio visits,?reading and writing, and a push from faculty to keep making more?work. ?There is a heightened level of criticality that can be tough?to face at times.? The process of intense critical feedback was an?adjustment period for Meier. ?I think the biggest part is realizing?that you don?t have to agree with everyone, that it?s up to you to?decide what your work needs or where it fails and where it succeeds.?
SARAH RACHEL LARSON
There is the old axiom of ?trial by fire,? something Larson learned?well while finishing her last year at The University of Texas at Dallaswith plans to graduate in December. While a resident member of the university?s artist residency studios, CentralTrak in Fair Park,?director Heyd Fontenot?s position was dissolved, and the current?group of artists were told the program would have to find a new space by summer, essentially being evicted from the building housing the?residence after nine years. ?Needless to say, it was a crazy time of?uncertainty.? Larson endured and chalked up the entire experience?during her MFA program to fortifying her resolve. ?This program?has always meant more to me than receiving a piece of paper, but now?I can see that it?s an experience I can apply to many parts of my life.??Larson works with specific fabrics and domestic hardware to?investigate emotional loss. ?I could explore any emotion, but loss?is relevant to me right now and is challenging in a medium that is?both ubiquitous and oftentimes comforting.? Observing her cloth?sculptures you will find small gestures, carefully placed tears, creases,?folds, and sewings that accent seemingly innocuous emotional?tethering, or perhaps untethering. These sculptures appear in?different states of unraveling, or possible undoing, but are actually?made whole from their applications. They double as security blankets,?intimate objects shared by family, lovers, and friends stained with?memory and emotional residue. While appearing fragile and worn,?these sculptures have endured, sustaining the usage of the artist?s?hands and mind. In her final year, Larson is finishing her MFA?with a newfound sense of endurance, apt to adapting to unforeseen?challenges of all styles, including an evolution of her process. ?No one needs an MFA. But an MFA is what you make of it. My practice?became a little more rigorous in terms of defending and validating?my work. I felt a little pigeon-holed to stay within my same medium,?so exploring new themes was a challenge, but a welcomed challenge.??She sums up what she learned the most with healthy curiosity: ?I still?have more questions than answers.?
ALISON JARDINE
?Doing an MFA is so strange, really, when you consider it against??normal? people?s lives.? British born painter Alison Jardine had a?fluid and accomplished career even before she enrolled in the MFA?program at University of North Texas in 2015. ?I began as a painter?of expressive nature based oils on canvas, and now I make landscape?paintings out of concrete, cast from plastic bags, as well as immersive?sculptural installations that I think of as paintings.? Pre-MFA,?Jardine had participated in the Dallas Aurora festival in both 2013?and 2015, was named a finalist for the 2016 Hunting Art Prize for?Painting & Drawing, featured in New American Paintings, and founded?the Dallas Arboretum Artist-in-Residence program. With those CV?highlights, Jardine decided to pursue a higher challenge, re-evaluating?intentionality and reasoning within her practice. ?Honestly, it was?pretty transformative for me. I?ve always been intellectually and?artistically curious, but I didn?t know how to harness this to progress?my work.? Things didn?t click right away with Jardine, admitting she??wandered through uncomfortable territory for quite a while, through my first years of the MFA.??It was a mentorship with professor Annette Lawrence, who served?as the head of her MFA committee, that allowed her to see things?in new ways. ?She really is the reason I was attracted to UNT. It?took a year or so, but she persisted in trying to open my eyes to the?way I was working, and finally, there did come my ?Aha!? moment,?where I understood what she was trying to convey.? For her, that?moment meant redefining ?painting? on her own terms, combining?a process-based practice with post-production, or found items to?explore the contrasts and connections between urban environments?and nature. ?When I began, my hope was that I would be guided?through developing my artwork further. I felt a little lost with what?I was doing, and I had so many questions that I hoped studying for?an MFA would answer. It has proved to be so much more than that. Fundamentally, I think it has taught me the skills I need to run my?own art practice when I graduate. I never expected it to be easy, and it hasn?t been, at times, but it was always worthwhile.??While at UNT, Jardine taught drawing classes to undergraduates,?helping to pay for her tuition. It also provided her an opportunity to?pay it forward, much like the mentoring Lawrence paid to her. While?graduating this year, Jardine has gotten straight to work, releasing a?book, Make Great Art on Your iPad in Europe and the U.S. this summer,?as well as a solo show at Erin Cluley Gallery in September.
JUAN ALBERTO NEGRONI
The Western perception of island life in Puerto Rico has always?frustrated artist Juan Alberto Negroni. ?In Puerto Rico, if you are?in the metropolitan area where I grew up, it feels super heavy, super?hectic. You would think on an island everyone is chilling, wearing?flip-flops. It?s not like that. We?ve been adapting a North American?way of living and trying to make it work on an island, and it?s a mess.??Negroni moved to Dallas from Puerto Rico with his wife two years?ago to attend Southern Methodist University for his masters, after?finding an adequate collector base to support artists in his home?country. ?There?s no money in Puerto Rico. There?s nothing you?can do. We have a few collectors inside Puerto Rico that are pretty?consistent. But since they have money, they are already buying outside?the country at auctions. No one is investing their money in the best of?the new generations.??One of the reasons Negroni chose SMU was because of all the?schools he applied to, it was the furthest from Puerto Rico. He also?came with a masters in education and a storied Central American?exhibition history, but was attracted to the strength of SMU?s?program. He also came with zero expectations on what he could find?in higher education, leaving himself open to opportunities. ?When?I came here, I was practically doing the same thing I was doing in?Puerto Rico. They were very simple abstractions. I was dealing with?the island and ?enclosement.? When we think of an island, we think of?this weird piece of land floating endlessly, on top of the water.? In a?recent group show this past spring, Fresh at Mary Tomas Gallery, with?whom he is represented, Negroni?s work explored the kinetic, colorful?memories of his home country, while also addressing loneliness,?overcrowding, poverty, and lack of personal space home evokes. ?I?started rethinking the whole thing. I went back to my basics since?my BA is in printmaking. I was paying a lot of attention to Joan?Mir??s composition.? This recent work explores Negroni?s childhood,?growing up sharing a room with two brothers. Growing up in a lower?income neighborhood, the house always felt overcrowded, making it?difficult to establish privacy, even sanctuary, within his room. These?are memories Negroni based much of the show around. In most of the?paintings from this body of work there is a medium-sized blob, born?of black paint and undesirable shape. Yet it is beautiful, and most of?the movement and gestures in the painting work around the blob as its?axis. It is when you step back and analyze, you are hit with heartbreak,?realizing it?s as much autobiographical for Negroni as well. ?It?s me.?It?s the island also, in relation to the political situation with the United?States and in relation to the other islands around it. But it?s also me in?relation to where I was and where I am now, working my way around.?
MARWA ADEL BENHALIM
Egyptian-born Marwa Benhalim has been interested in?power dynamics?and politically based work since her undergraduate studies?at The American University in Cairo. Since arriving in the US to study?at Southern Methodist University, Benhalim found a faculty and?community open to her artistic concerns, guiding and challenging her?to discover multiple disciplines. ?Having the space and materials to?experiment with techniques opened the door for me to explore new?ways to think about my ideas. Throughout the past two years there?have been professors pushing me to think theoretically about why I?am doing something. So it?s grounded in a better way.??She took advantage of open studio hours with professors of other?disciplines, working with the film department and even directing a?film last year under the mentorship of the film department?s Assistant?Professor, Amber Bemak. ?It was good to be engaged with other?departments. It?s a little more difficult to be interdisciplinary because?the arts building doesn?t help you; it?s big and divided. There?s the art?side, theatre side, and the music department is in the basement. So?it?s harder to work with other people, but there have been situations?where I was able to.??Benhalim began experimenting with different ways to explore?notions of power from the point of view of an international student?in a new environment. ?The concept of power is something I have?been interested in for a very long time, since my bachelor?s degree. In?the MFA program I tried to experiment further and really push the?concept. Especially struggling with this idea of being a foreigner in the?US and talking about power and control in regards to my experience?here and what that means.? A cultural symbol in Egypt, the chairs?found in marketplace and tea shops have become a symbol of power?for her to research and apply her theories to. The chair became an?integral part of Benhalim?s thesis show, punctuating its significance?and open-ended meaning through holograms made by Benhalim?that allowed the chair to exist outside of a static object, and remain?limitless in its manifestation in the gallery. ?I use video, holograms,?and sound so I can be a bit more abstract and not as didactic. It helps?people understand while it also protects me and initiates some sort of?conversation. With the chair, it?s something I have to explain here,?but back home in Egypt it is immediately read and recognized.?One of the great things about being an international student in an?MFA program is you get to question how you talk to someone and?explain something, giving them enough context so they understand.?Especially coming from another country, it?s quite a challenge.? She?returns home to Cairo at the end of May and will take her expanded?practice with her, finding new ways to translate what she has learned?while at SMU to a country with different traditions and power structures. ?I have a lot of work ahead of me. I am going back to?Egypt, and I think about the dissemination of texts that bring a lot?of problems for artists. How can I explore other mediums for people?to think without creating a super direct message? I want to open the?space for multiple interpretations to my work, keeping myself safe?within these interpretations.? P
WRITTEN BY LEE ESCOBEDO
PORTRAIT BY SIL AZEVEDO