School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents “Dread/Dream,” an exhibition of work by artists from MFA Fine Arts class of 2020, whose in-person thesis show was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Curated by Regine Basha, the exhibition will be on view from Thursday, January 12, through Monday, January 30, at the SVA Chelsea Gallery, 601 West 26th Street, 15th Floor, New York City.

Through installation, film, sculpture, painting and digital performance, “Dread/Dream” explores the existential condition that forms in the wake of catastrophic events, a mixture of fear and hope to which the best response may be the imaginative power with which artists process loss and forge ways forward. The artworks in this exhibition ask viewers to consider themes of home and identity, methods of memorializing, effects of environmental disaster, feminist critiques, working with the scars of trauma, the effects of capitalism and corporate manipulation on daily life, and how to remain present through observation and the shaping of physical and digital spaces. 

Marcelina Pater presents Zero States, an apt image for a sense of location/dislocation with the forming of an iconic circle using negative space. Mike Marrella’s ‘attenuated paintings’ are vertical totemic works revealing meticulous paint stacks the artist has accumulated over time. The sculptural work of Carra Seals investigates how personal memory can be imbued into miniature concrete blocks. Through a repetition of painted marks, scribbles and writing, Jennifer Rappaport signals the threshold of legibility. Jimmy Mezei explores the act of slowing down through the playful making and repurposing of functional objects to counter the alienation of digital space. Mengxia Shi works within the confines of digital space to create analog moments of physicality and game-play. Carlos Rosales-Silva’s saturated paintings are a material exploration of contemporary black/brown modernist abstract forms, a LatinX language formed out of his Southwest upbringing in the face of colonial history. Craft and tufted rugs from her American-Iranian family’s heritage informs Sarah Malekzadeh’s humorist work about American consumer culture. Labor-intensive work about time and personal memory of daily chores play out in textile and book-making works by Yawen Erin Huang. Maximilian Juliá presents prints selected from E-SCÁN-DALO, a series of 150 images in which a scanner is used like a time machine to obsessively capture an inventory of local fruit and objects from his Puerto Rican family home, facing constant threat of environmental catastrophe. The deftly stitched language and image-based works of Amanda Smith, an artist who came to New York from Aotearoa (New Zealand), offer lamentations and reflections on the oppressive expectations placed on women in her personal history. María Dusamp creates powerful sculpturally-based wall works exploring the loss of innocence and mythic ‘avatars of survival’; using vintage photos, objects and animation. Daniel Arturo Almeida creates visual tableaus chronicling family gatherings and cross-generational stories of movement and displacement. Jay Elizondo unpacks her queer childhood and relationship with her mother through narrative performance, photography and installation. Tarah Rhoda puts a microscope to human emotion by creating tools for an elaborate research practice based on collecting tears. Andrea Crapanzano’s video projection Paraphrases intervenes in ads to unmask the violence behind aestheticized tropes and propagandistic language coming from companies that produce weapons. Keno Tung’s Instant Cinema series is composed of framed NYC street scenes collaged with sounds of stunted daily communications creating micro-narrative films; using curiosity, humor and technology. Dulce Lamarca’s prints and video capture intimate live performance sessions in which she searches online.

The SVA Chelsea Gallery is open Monday through Saturday, from 10:00am to 6:00pm, and closed on Sundays. Proper masking is required. It is fully accessible by wheelchair.