Best of the North East Masters of Fine Arts Presented by People’s United Bank
Helen Day Art Center is the first institution in New England to offer an “introduction” show to participants in MFA degree programs in the North East. The Exhibit will connect visitors with the strongest emerging artists from New England, Quebec and New York, while giving those artists the opportunity to showcase their work to a new audience of local Vermont residents and visitors.
When Helen Day Art Center decided to organize an exhibition to include the best artists of the next generation, they had no idea what to expect. “We wanted to bring some of the most impressive new talent in the North East to Stowe, Vermont to exhibit their work. We never expected the number of submissions that we received.” Said Nathan Suter, Director of Helen Day Art Center and Curator of the exhibition which opens on June 10th at 6:00. An Artists’ tour starts at 5:30. “At the deadline there were 107 artists who sent their work for the jury to consider.”
The jury process took place over two days in late April and resulted in seven artists selected. The Jury was composed of some of the rising stars in contemporary art curation and interpretation; one artist-curator, two curators, and one art historian:
Nina Gara Bozicnik, MA, Assistant Curator, Currier Museum of Art
Dina Deitsch, MA, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art DeCordova Sculpture Park + Museum
Anthony Grudin, PhD, Assistant professor of Art History, University of Vermont
Rachel Moore, MFA, Fulbright Fellow and Independent Curator, Co-Founder of Spoke: Chicago
Though the artists all were active MFA degree candidates at schools in New York, New England or Quebec, the final 7 are from a much broader geographic range - signaling the increasingly global community of artists. They hail originally from the U.S., London, South Africa, South Korea,
Mexico City and British Columbia. Their work includes photography, painting, sculpture, video, site-specific installation and social practice / intervention work.
Artists Selected:
Jennifer Cawley, Photography, Rhode Island School of Design
John C. Gonzalez, New Genres, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Joo Lee Kang, Painting / Drawing/ Printmaking, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Francisco Moreno, Painting, Rhode Island School of Design
Christopher Page, New Genres / Sculpture, Yale University
Melanie Perreault, New Genres, Concordia University
Robert Watermeyer, Photography, Massachusetts College of Art and Design
The exhibition will be curated by Nathan Suter, Executive Director, Helen Day Art Center
Contact:
Nathan Suter
Director & Curator
Helen Day Art Center
Stowe, VT 05672
nathan@helenday.com
(802) 253-8358
images: Jennifer Cawley Untitled (Airstrip, Vietnam), from the series Re/constructed Narratives of the American War in Vietnam,
archival inkjet print, 2010
Melanie Perreault, Bamboozled Box Social, 2007, cardboard, paper. 375cm x 600cm x 400cm
Robert Watermeyer, Landfill, Worcester, 2010 archival inkjet print
