The ‘Reflection’ show at Gallery at the Sanctuary brings together different works of six students from the graduate class of 2019 of the Smfa at Tufts. The show is intended to be the first, and will be followed by a second one in the following months by another group of students of the same class.
Students’ artworks reflect their individual concepts derived from their focus and thus, the themes of the works display a substantial variety. A range of medium takes place in the show including video, printmaking – specifically handmade paper, textile work, and painting which consists of techniques such as oil, acrylic paints, gouache, and ink.
Within this context, Paulina MacNeil, as a consumer, responds to the demanding production of capitalism in the fashion industry with her sewn patchwork textile pieces of tags. Willoughby Hastings works with conflicting visual symbols to explain personal experiences related to complicated social matters such as hierarchy or the memory of hierarchy within the society in terms of class and race.
Gisele Gardner’s painting, Rapturous, challenges the gray area between contrasting ideas and draws the audience into the field of uncertainty of what they see. Constructed through the material that created his memories of his grandfather and his grandfather’s space, Louis Meola’s handmade paper is an extension of his work which deals with memory and loss.
Lei Zong and Gulumhan Huma Yildirim’s works re-contextual or re-interpret the “classical” or the “traditional”. In this sense, Lei focuses on Flemish paintings and carries them to the present time by adding or subtracting from the setting and relocating the characteristics of the original work into new social settings. While Huma continues making traditional Turkish illumination artwork, she also seeks to re-interpret it by borrowing elements of contemporary art and merging them into her background.
Website: www.smfa.tufts.edu/
