School of Art February 2024 News Update

February 29, 2024

The School of Art (SoA) is a dynamic, interdisciplinary unit with a roster of 33 full-time professors and more than 50 adjunct faculty, and over 20 dedicated staff members.

Combined, our community represents the breadth of creative practices and art and design focused scholarship. Here are some opportunities to attend local and national events that include our students, alumni, and faculty this spring.

But, before you start populating your calendar with our community’s panel presentations and art exhibitions and updating your Amazon cart with recent book publications from our faculty, you might enjoy reading these statistics compiled by SOA Assistant Director Bobby Yi about our alumni. This report has been prepared by Mary Liles, Office Manager, SOA.

 The survey revealed that in the fall of 2023: 

  • 95% of our alum are employed.
  • 89% are employed in the art and design field and are working in an industry that is related to their AVT degree.
  • Job titles include Art Specialist, Creative Manager, Art Teacher, Graphic Designer, Creative Strategist, Production Designer, Photographer, Design Patent Examiner, and Biophilic Design Specialist, to name a few.
  • Our Alumni are nationwide and global:  from Maine to California, from Norway to Saudi Arabia.

We love our alumni! Now to upcoming events, we hope you’ll join us at a few of them!

Current Students and Alumni

Art Education

  • Lauren Pierce, Master of Arts in Teaching Art Education (MAT) presented a session on neurodiversity at Virginia Art Education Association (VAEA) conference last November at James Madison University. Her presentation was informed by her capstone research conducted during student teaching. 
     
  • Six current MAT students attended the VAEA conference through the National Art Education Association (NAEA) Student Chapter at George Mason. Multiple students have applied through Student Registered Organizations (SRO) at Mason to attend the National Art Education Association (NAEA) Conference April 4 – 6, 2024 in Minneapolis, MN. The Mason NAEA Student Chapter and its leadership have been recognized at the state and national level. 
     
  • MAT Capstone Research presentations will take place on Wednesday, May 1st at 4:00pm in room L011 in the Art & Design building. Dr. Hayon Park's three student teachers will present their final research to a panel of three reviewers as well as the Fairfax County Public School’s (FCPS) Mentor Teachers and Administrators. The assessment garners data for our external accreditation and licensure. 

Studio Art

  • 2022 Alumni, Vihn Bui, created a Chinese dragon which debuted with a dragon dance performance at Vice President Kamala Harris's residence on January 31 for her Lunar New Year event. Vihn Bui commissioned Mason students from the Mix to assist in the making of the body of the dragon. 
     
  • Collage Artist Katana Lippart conducted a Valentine’s Day card making workshop on February 10 at Transformer Gallery’s 8th Annual Heartbreaker’s Ball exhibit/event in Washington, D.C.
     
  • Off 70 Studio, a storefront space in the town of Hancock, Maryland, will feature recent work by students in the Mason School of Art.  Works by artists Chen Bi, Mackenzie Ann O'Neal Hoffman, Elizabeth Kartchner, Steven Luu, Traci Wood Reynolds will be highlighted in the storefront windows in a pop-up one-day installation. The public is invited to attend on Saturday February 24 from noon to 2PM to view the works. Refreshments will be served.  Hancock is a historic town on the C&O Canal situated between Interstate 70 and the Potomac River. Off 70 Studio came into being when Professor Sue Wrbican received a grant from the town to rehabilitate the space as her auxiliary studio with gallery capabilities. For more info on the space, the Instagram handle is @off_70_studio
     
  • Tori Sprankle recently bought her own Risograph machine to launch her new publishing project, Dumb Bitch Press.
     
  • Caroline Kim and Rachna Soun (both SoA alum) are currently our Dynamic Publishing resident artists at Late Comeback Press. A statement from the website says “The name derives from the French term l’esprit de l’escalier — thinking of the perfect reply a little too late. As Asian-American artists, we live within the hyphen, struggling, at times, to convey language that exists in one culture but not in the other.”
     
  • Alumna Kat Thompson has been invited to The Studios at Mass MOCA 2024 residency program in North Adams, MA.Since 2015, The Studios at MASS MoCA have hosted 900 artists and writers for self-directed residencies at one of the world’s leading art centers.

Graphic Design 

  • Teodora Blinu, BFA 2011, has a new position at the Paris location of Datadog as a Product Design Manager II. Datadog, based in NYC, provides cloud-scale monitoring and security for metrics, traces, and logs in one unified platform.
     
  • Annamaria Ward, BA 2017, has embarked on a new professional chapter as a Digital Graphic Designer with one of the largest school systems in the country, Fairfax County Public Schools.
     
  • Joseph Le, BFA 2012, recently directed Call Me Shadow, a music video for 88RISING's Akini Jing. Check it out as well as his other work.
     
  • Donny Truong, MA 2015, has published the second edition of Professional Web Typography, which updates the first edition’s research in how to combine typographic principles with current web technologies. 

Faculty News

  • Sue Wrbican is in the exhibition Climate for Change at the Pinkard Gallery, MICA.  On view from January 19-March 3, 2024.
     
  • Miriam Ahmed published her book Spring Gardening, available on Amazon. 
     
  • Daniel Barney will present on an arts-based research methodology called “a/r/tography” as part of a panel on “Creative Practice as Pedagogical Practice” at a conference held by the College Art Association in Chicago on Feb. 14. Prof. Barney will also be on a panel to discuss "Unique and Probing Research in the Field: Researchers Push Limits of What We Know and Do” at the National Art Education Association’s conference on April 5, 2024, in Minneapolis.
     
  • Zoë Charlton has work included in two traveling group exhibitions. Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage is on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from February 18-May 12, 2024. A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration will be on view from April 13-Sept 22, 2024, at the Berkely Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (CA). Artwork from her 2013 Homebodies Series is the cover of Dr. Adrienne Brown’s book The Residential is Racial: A Perpetual History of Mass Homeownership (2024, Stanford University Press).
     
  • Janet Dandridge will exhibit at the DC Arts Center in Adams Morgan, NW D.C.  The show is called Labor of Fire, curated by Benedetta Castrioto. The opening is February 16th, and it closes on March 17th. 
     
  • Jessica Kallista Spring curated the spring 2024 sessions of the Kritikos Anti-Racist Reading Group along with by Mason faculty member Kristin Johnsen-Neshati, with help from co-organizers, Cynthia Fuchs, Jordan McRae, and Sang Nam. The sessions begin Friday, February 16, from 1:00-2:30pm and will be held every Friday through April 5. All are welcome. All materials to read and view before the session are available on the website.  Professor Kallista will also perform in the exhibition FUN at Otis Street Arts Project, 3706 Otis St., Mt Rainier, MD 20712. The opening reception is February 17, from 5-8 p.m. The exhibition runs February 17-March 23, 2024. 
     
  • Paloma Martinez Acosta will have a solo exhibition at the Hylton Performing Arts Center beginning February 20th. Juárez Lindo y Querido highlights selections her Chamarra Series, paintings portraying her home city, Ciudad Juárez. Using painting as a practice of healing and care, this series explores the artist’s relationship to the vulnerable but resilient city situated on the Mexico border. 
     
  • Negar Nahidian is one of three Muslim Women Artists of the DMV’s whose work is featured in “God is Love and Loves Beauty” at the Popcorn Gallery,7300 MacArthur Blvd.   Glen Echo, MD 20812.  The opening reception is on February 24 from 6 pm – 8 pm and the exhibit runs from February 24 – March 24. https://glenechopark.org/popcorngallery
     
  • Assistant Director Robert Yi curated and juried for the Arlington Artist Alliance: Gallery Underground national juried show, “Our American Soul” Dates: February 27 - March 29, 2024. http://tinyurl.com/56sscntr
     
  • Assistant Professor Rick Heffner is working with the Alan Cheuse International Writing Center at Mason in creating branding and promotion materials for BALDWIN100 initiative.  https://cheusecenter.gmu.edu/baldwin100/call-for-art-closes-jan-5-2024 He is also working with the Smithsonian's Traveling Exhibition Service on creating a new exhibition: Japanese War Brides: Across A Wide Divide. The exhibition tour begins late 2024. Japanese War Brides explores the lives of the 45,000 Japanese women who immigrated to America as wives of U.S. military servicemembers after World War II. http://tinyurl.com/4x6k4f26
     
  • Kristin Johnsen-Neshati and Jessica Kallista are co-presenting at the Access to Research and Inclusive Excellence National Conference 2024 held at Mason March 18-19, 2024. The conference theme is Action through Research and Practice. Registration deadline is Friday, March 8, 2024. https://diversity.gmu.edu/arie-conference
     
  • Justin Plakas is participating as a faculty researcher in the BLIMP Workshop at the Mason Innovation Exchange this semester. In collaboration with Professor Ted Prawat (Computer Game Design) and under the guidance of Professor Daigo Shishika (Mechanical Engineering), Justin will be part of an interdisciplinary group consisting of faculty, PhD candidates and undergraduate students. Their collective aim is to engage in research, design, and fabrication of floating BLIMP vehicles utilizing microcontrollers and computer vision technology. This program, organized by the Mason Innovation Exchange, will highlight the exciting BLIMP research on March 27 at Horizon Hall.
     
  • Chawky Frenn will present “20th Century Artists Defying War” during this year’s Peace Week theme, “Transforming Conflict, Enhancing Social  Impact,” March 25 from 12-1:30 pm at the Carter School of Peace and Conflict Resolution. Be sure to watch Professor Frenn’s series of interviews
  • April 25 – 28Christopher Kardambikis, Forrest Lawson, and Jennifer Lillis will all have books in the New York Art Book Fair represented by Paper Cuts. 
     
  • Mallory Kimmel curated the group exhibition I don't dream of labor at The Gallery at CCBC Essex, on view from March 16 through May 19, 2024. I don’t dream of labor is an all-women exhibition of artists and healing practitioners to undermine the pervasive hustle culture of working in our society. The opening reception - March 21 from10am-12pm & 6-8pm, with a workshop April 20 from11am – 4pm. Participating Artists: Ama Be, Ama Chandra, Chiara Francesca, Christine Wang, Kathryn Cornelius, Maria Porges, Mēlani Douglas, Michelle Dubreuil Macek, Nancy Daly, and Shirin Towfiq
     
  • Dr. Heather Streckfus-Green reviewed The Long Form, a hybrid novel by writer and theorist Kate Briggs for the latest issue of On the Seawall, a community gallery of new writing, art, and commentary. She was also awarded a Virginia Center for Creative Arts (VCCA) Fellowship and will live at the VCCA in May 2024. In November 2023, at the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) conference, Heather Streckfus-Green presented on two roundtables—“Translating Unknown Poets” and “Theory and Research in Translation,” gave readings in the Alexis Levitan Bilingual Reading series and Action Books’ annual offsite reading “Sh*tholes of the World Unite,” and presented the National Translation Prize in Poetry, for which she was a judge, to Egyptian poet Iman Mersal and her translator Robyn Creswell.
     
  • Associate Director Rachel Debuque will attend the Symposium Künstlergut in Germany this June. This is a four-week symposium for sculptors with children.
     
  • Daniel Barney, Rachel Debuque, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, and Hayon Park are jurors for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for the Fairfax Region.
     
  • J Carrier J’s second major monograph (and 7th book) Mi’raj will be published by Brooklyn based imprint TIS Books. The book launched on November 8, 2023, at Polycopies Festival held during the annual Paris-Photo week in Paris, France. Begun in 2011, the project is the culmination of several years’ work made in Palestine and Israel inspired by Al-Isra wal Mi’raj – the ascension of the Prophet Muhammad.  SoA Visiting Faculty Fellow faculty Abdulrahman Naanseh who created the calligraphy used on the cover and interior.

Exhibitions and Artist Talks, Mason Exhibitions and Provisions Library News

Visual Voices

Maria Gaspar is an interdisciplinary artist negotiating the politics of location through installation, sculpture, sound, and performance. Gaspar’s work addresses spatial justice issues to amplify, mobilize, or divert structures of power through individual and collective gestures. In collaboration with George Mason University’s data mapping and art history scholars, Gaspar will continue to realize her goals of abolishing carceral spaces by adding prints of current prisons, jails, and immigrant detention facilities in Virginia to the Disappearance Jails project, which will be obscured through perforations by exhibition visitors. 
Thursday, February 22, 2024 @ 4:45pm - 6:30pm Maria Gaspar (virtual)

Late Comeback Press

Late Comeback Press is a Northern Virginia micro-press run by Rachna Soun and Caroline Kim, specializing in avant-garde zines. Communication and existentialism are the center of their art, flourishing in the space before choices are made, when the possibilities can seem paralyzingly endless or distinctively finite.

  • Thursday, March 21, 2024 @ 4:45pm - 6:30pm - Late Comeback Press (virtual)
  • RSVP
  • Zoom link

Mendi + Keith Obadike

Mendi + Keith Obadike are artists, composers, and writers. Their works sit at the intersection of art, music, and language and draw upon histories of experimental media art and performance. Their early collaborative works were pioneering pieces for the Internet. 

Gillespie Gallery, Mason Art and Design Building, Fairfax

Mason Exhibitions Arlington

  • An Incarcerated Salon, Friday, Feb 16, 7-9pm. The night is curated by artist Carlos Walker, who will kick off the event with a Political Rap Battle performance. There will be a variety of musical performances, spoken word poetry, and other creative presentations. The microphone will be open to any audience members who would like to perform! RSVP
  • Faces of Resilience (Jan 6 - March 30, 2024)
  • Prof. Shanshan Cui has artwork included in Roots and Reflections: Contemporary Chinese Artists in D.C. at Buchanan Hall, Mason from Feb 1 - April 19

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