By Megan Davis
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
The 2018 First Year Experience Exhibition (FYE) at the Maryland Institute College of Art is open to the public and attracted a small crowd of students and locals last night to view the array of unique art pieces lining the school’s Meyerhoff Gallery.
The free exhibition, which is located on the MICA campus off Royal Avenue in Baltimore, features works of art from MICA students who were freshmen in the 2017-18 school year. Visitors were also guided to another gallery full of art from the professors at the institute.
The gallery overall left many visitors impressed with what they saw, and elicited an overall positive response.
Julay Yang, a graduate student at MICA, was impressed with a sculpture by Arnab Gan Choudhury called “Kaali.”
“It’s kinda like a creature and he or she has three eyes, which is pretty cool,” Yang said. “I’m doing sculptural things so I pay attention to things like this.”
Other students enjoyed the sculpture as well, though they had different reactions when they first saw the artwork.
“You walk past and go, ‘Oh jeez, is that a person?’” said Raya Zimon, a senior at MICA.
Some of the artwork used one or two types of media, such as Patricia Chevez’s “Tributo al Sacraticio,” which utilized a video and a garment.
Flynn Walkinshaw’s “We All Have A Habit of Falling Apart” was made from eight types of media, including oil paint, acrylic, charcoal, spray paint, cardboard, wood, clothes and Plex Seal.
The piece, one of the first that greeted visitors into Meyerhoff, stood at approximately 11-feet high, with a width of about 6 feet. It appeared to be a large sculpture of a creature with human legs and arms, yet a monstrous face, that held a large canvas filled with colors and shapes.
“It took about two to two-and-a-half weeks to make,” said Walkinshaw, a sophomore and the artist of the piece.
His inspiration, aside from it being a final project, stemmed from a difficult relationship he was going through at the time.
“I didn’t want to focus on the relationship, so instead I decided to focus on a relationship I liked, which was between me and art,” Walkinshaw said.
Before artwork can be displayed in the gallery, teachers and department heads at MICA must first review the art to see if it is acceptable to put on display. If the artwork is approved, students will then be able to hang up their art for the public eye.
“All of the exhibits are juried,” Zimon said. “So, if you want your art in exhibits you have to submit it for jury and have it approved. It’s nice to get your name out there and just have art up, especially because we have a lot of art visitors that come and give talks.”
Though Zimon and her friend Allie Schaff were unable to put any artwork in the 2018 First Year Exhibition because they were seniors, the two are excited for the Senior Exhibition at the end of the year.
“We have a show at the end, the Senior Exhibition, where we get to have our stuff shown for our thesis,” Schaff said.
Students were not the only ones to enjoy the exhibition.
Ellen Burchenal, an adjunct professor for the Senior Thesis department, walked through the gallery admiring the artwork. Her favorite was David Wimbish’s “chair as a chair as a chair as an idea,” which was 40 small squares of paper, each with different depictions of a chair.
“It shows an investigation of something,” Burchenal said. “The guy started with the chair idea and then sort of investigated the chair in many different ways. From writing, some sort of intuitive, some more scratch, and render figurative.”
MICA’s 2018 First Year Exhibition runs until Sunday. The gallery hours are Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.