Exhibition

February 24 - March 10, 2012
Reception: Thursday, March 1, 6-8pm

School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents "Just the Tip," a thesis exhibition by students in the MFA Fine Arts Department, organized by artist Mike Egan, co-founder of Ramiken Crucible gallery in New York.

The works selected for the exhibition are indicative of the pluralism and individual exploration that is central to the program. In her essay for the accompanying catalog, artist Wendy White describes the participating artists as having "internalized the fact that while certain mediums, tactics and trends rise to prominence at any given time, our multi-faceted contemporary climate demands the individual's artistic touch." She says, "They grasp the importance of inventing their own terminology to describe what they make - in this generation's case, new words for a complex image culture."  Participating artists include: Nicholas Bakita, Victoria Batey, Andrew Brischler, Steven Joseph Chapman, Eli G. Halpern, Her Hsuan Hsieh, Élan Jurado, Hyun Soon Kim, Kacie Lees, Eric Mistretta, Peter Neu, David Ostro, Christina J. Wang and Rebecca Ward. "These students are really good artists and they didn't need a curator for their thesis show," says exhibition organizer Mike Egan.

The MFA Fine Arts Department offers a specialization in painting, sculpture, installation, printmaking, new media and mixed media, while fostering an ideology of stylistic pluralism. The two-year, 60-credit degree program encourages students to follow a personal course of intellectual and expressive evolution as they experiment with diverse artistic persuasions, discover new aspects of their creative abilities and gain greater technical mastery.