Exhibition

School of Visual Arts presents “Four Walls,” an exhibition of works by SVA students selected by a jury of their peers. Organized by SVA Galleries, the exhibition is on view Thursday, May 16, through Saturday, June 1, at the SVA Flatiron Gallery, 133/141 West 21st Street, New York City.

The artists featured in this exhibition observe intimate domestic spaces as sites that are both formative and illusive. Storied in histories and shimmering with potential futures, the home plays an indelible role in the construction of one’s perspective by establishing the initial framework by which we understand the surrounding world. The rooms contained within a home, whether physical or theoretical, have the potential to contain or free us; their contents shape the ways in which we understand reality, fantasy and fiction. Expressed through photography, video, drawing and installation work, “Four Walls” shares the stories and craft of six artists who consider identity and notions of self as built, subjective structures, rather than dogmatic entities. 

Drawing upon the personal lens of a genderqueer, first-generation, Filipinx-American, Jaizi Abedania (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) addresses the fluidity of character development through the portrayal of different fictitious characters—all performed by Abedania.

Min Ding (MFA Fine Arts) exposes power dynamics and the far-reaching oppression of patriarchy by creating surreal, dreamlike spaces, articulating the inner “emotional landscapes” contained within her fictional (often female) characters using stop-motion video and drawings.

Mia Sweeney Gahrmann (BFA Photography and Video) considers her own lineage in “Descendant,” an intimate photographic series of family, which explores generational bonds and the physical connections between photographer and subject.

Constructing domestic scenes by way of miniature models and pinhole photography, Michelle Girardello (MFA Fine Arts) creates her own version of home while envisioning uncharted possibilities of the future as she and her wife build a life together.

Considering the ways in which The Rosemont (a Brooklyn gay bar) and his past two years as a student at SVA have influenced his independence as a queer person, Zac Thompson (MFA Fine Arts) collapses both experiences into an expansive wall drawing of a hybrid interior space that reflects his journey as an artist.

In Dear Fubá, Ana Paula Tizzi (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) creates surreal cinemagraphs—still photographs with animated features—which serve as metaphors for specific pieces of wisdom and advice that she has received via letters from her father.

Juried exhibitions are a way for SVA’s student body to recognize the achievements of their most distinguished classmates. Artists are selected from a large pool of applicants to the annual SVA Galleries call for entries, whose submissions undergo a rigorous examination of presented materials, including documentation of work and artist statements.