School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents “Precarity & Possibility,” an exhibition of work by six second-year students in the MFA Art Practice program, curated by department faculty member and director of operations Jacquelyn Strycker. The exhibition will be on view Wednesday, July 10, through Monday, July 29, 2024, at the SVA Flatiron Gallery, 133/141 West 21st Street, New York City.

The works in this show grapple with what it means to find resilience, beauty and possibility in an uncertain world. The artists explore themes of addiction, truth, the body, the environment and our relationship to consumer objects and detritus, each building a home with ambivalence and hope on uncertain terrain.

DW Zinnser's Dunkin Ghosts depicts the chaos and visceral anguish of addiction through contorted, tumor-laden figures festooned with offerings like traffic cones and syringe caps. Their agonized faces cry out from the confinement of late capitalism's glossy purgatory.

Casey Correa's assemblage lays bare the back of the canvas, adorning it with found objects like mousetraps and a stuffed Shamu. She plays with colors, images and words in an anthropological exploration of the detritus of contemporary life.

Frank Rapant's photo series with handwritten texts explores the tenuous line between truth and fiction in our current age of deluge. Does it ultimately matter what is "real?” The works pose this question while holding space for both fact and myth. Can emotional truths be fabricated from lies?

Jacqueline Ehle-Inglefield's Horses, is an installation of large, semi-abstracted equine forms made from wire, lace and found plastic, referencing modernity’s plastic flotsam and jetsam. The work evokes the complex role of horses in the colonization of North America, while embracing their symbolism of freedom and wild spirit, twisting together conflicting histories and possible futures.

Natasha K. De Armas's video Manto Remoto shows a solitary, shrouded specter on a windswept Long Island beach, the textile cocoon billowing around an anonymous form. The imagery evokes emergencies, displacement and the fragile, ephemeral nature of shelter in an overexposed world.

Beckett Sky's sculptural installation integrates plants, vibrant gestural painting and textiles, bringing the outside world into conversation with traditional artistic media. Painted colors swirl around mossy patches, nourishing a sense of softness and vulnerability.

MFA Art Practice is a low-residency, interdisciplinary graduate program that has combined online and in-person learning for over 10 years. A carefully selected, small group of candidates comes together at SVA’s NYC campus for three successive, intensive summer residency periods. In the intervening fall and spring semesters, students engage in required, rich-media online coursework from all over the world. Participants combine personal narrative with critical theory to be active citizen artists.

MFA Art Practice aims to facilitate a global conversation about the arts. Ultimately, the program endeavors to foster an atmosphere of risk-taking and experimentation, and to create a community of artists and culture producers who look beyond a consensus driven approach to define what’s important in contemporary art.

The SVA Flatiron Gallery is open Monday through Saturday, 10:00am – 6:00pm.

Exhibition

Precarity & Possibility

SVA Flatiron Gallery

Reception