MCLA Fine & Performing Arts Senior Exhibition
Synthesis: Sluts, Beasts, and Synths is a confrontational inquiry about love, imaginative beasts, and post-punk/industrial music.
Skylah’s project on love/sex utilizes reclaimed wooden pallets reworked into an uncomfortable bed. Hand-crafted fabric upholstery and bedding features quotes harvested from participants’ experiences in relationships. “This sculpture/installation reflects emotion and experiences of modern hook-up culture from not only myself but my peers. My artwork strongly utilizes the opinions and voices in my surrounding community.”
Hailey Rolon manifests dream-like beasts that are life-sized, made from paper mâché and clay, as well as drawings. She describes her work “as an extension of myself. My art reflects the physicality of this lived experience. Most artworks become self-portraits whether I want them to be or not.”
Matt synthesizes his interpretations of post-punk and industrial music with art historical inquiry. His work bridges the gap between music and art through experimental compositions using metal scraps and other found materials. “We are all combining our external influences with our own ideas, in uncomfortable or shocking ways. The shock factor in my project is through my materials - rusty, sharp, and bizarre metal scraps.”
In 2023, the Studios at MASS MoCA and The Berkshire Immigrant Center started the Iris Residency to support artists in Western or Central Massachusetts who are born outside the U.S., or identify as first or second generation American. The exhibition, MIGRITUDE (a word coined by Shailja Patel) showcases the work of the five selected Iris Residency fellows - Cima Khademi, Clemente Sajquiy, Marina Dominguez, Hanna Sobolieva, and Shailja Patel - and their different approaches to the continuous process of building connections to both, the old and the new place.
The exhibition MIGRITUDE is curated by the Iris Fellowship coordinators, Carolina Porras-Monroy and Luiza Folegatti.
*To learn more about the Iris Residency: assetsforartists.org/iris-residency
**MIGRITUDE (Kaya Press, 2010) is the bestselling book, based on the internationally touring one-woman show, of poet, activist and exhibiting artist Shailja Patel. The word MIGRITUDE captures the concepts of migrant attitudes and migrants with attitude. It represents a reclaiming of voice and power by migrants who speak for themselves.
All exhibitions and events are open to the MCLA community and the general public.
