Features

Across oil paintings, photography, digital illustration, and even stained glass, this edition of The Five finds alumni working in spaces both traditional—galleries and monographs—and unexpected—public libraries and train stations—and exploring themes around identity, gender, history, nature, and dreams.

1. At the Montclair (NJ) Public Library, SVA alumnus and award-winning artist John Dunic’s (BFA 1976 Media Arts) vibrant works will be on view through January 28, 2025. Dunic works with oils, acrylics, watercolors, and more to create his often surreal pieces, which include scenes of nature and portraits, and touch on themes ranging from history to religion and music. Via Patch.

2. Creative Boom recently did a deep dive into the illustrations of New York-based artist, educator, and founder of digital community Illustrators Acquainted, Karlotta Freier (MFA 2021 Illustration as Visual Essay). The award-winning Freier’s work includes wood-carving, oils, digital illustration, knitting, and sewing, and has been used across fashion, beauty, and editorial projects. Creative Boom celebrates her embrace of the whimsical and refusal to be confined by one particular style. “To me, the main product of my work is not the drawing in the end, but the time I spent with the drawing,” Freier says in the piece. “I enjoy spending time with my work. I like slowly exploring a theme and discovering something new in the process. I like my work the best when I can surprise myself.”

3. Jesse Zuo (BFA 2022 Illustration, MFA 2024 Illustration as Visual Essay) is BOOOOOOOM’s spotlight artist on the occasion of the recent debut of her solo exhibition at New York’s LATITUDE Gallery. Across a series of new paintings focused on femininity and womanhood, both bodily and emotionally, “Zuo’s paintings explore the dynamic relationship between light, color, and atmosphere, capturing immersive moments that invite viewers to feel comfortable in their own skin,” they write. “Jesse Zuo: My Safe Place” will be on view through December 31 at the Chinatown gallery.

4. If you’ve ever passed through the Philipse Manor Metro North station in Sleepy Hollow, New York, you might have seen SVA alum Joseph Cavalieri’s (BFA 1983 Media Arts) stunning stained glass artwork North, South and Home. Over more than two decades of working with the delicate and colorful medium, Cavalieri has exhibited all around the US and the world, taught dozens of workshops and classes, and has made creations inspired by everything from historic churches to The Simpsons. “It’s magical with all the colors,” he tells The River Journal. “At the same time, the glass is blocking the outside world, so there’s two different meanings to it. It’s beautiful, but you’re also not seeing what’s outside.”

5. With the release of her new monograph Why Am I Sad, alumnus, artist, editor, and designer Dana Stirling (MFA 2016 Photography, Video and Related Media) talks to Lens/cratch about the healing and haunting powers of art. An award-winning photographer and the co-founder and editor of Float Photo Magazine, Stirling is exploring her identity, experience with depression, and growing up in her latest work. “For me, photography has always been a way to explore the contradictions of life—the moments that feel both heavy and light, beautiful and strange, heartbreaking and absurd,” she says. “What draws me to making an image is often this tension, this idea that an image can hold multiple truths at once.”