CCAD presents Collision: 2018 MFA thesis exhibition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Mar 21, 2018

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Columbus College of Art & Design is proud to present Collision: 2018 CCAD MFA Thesis Exhibition, featuring work by the 19 students in the college’s Master of Fine Arts 2018 graduating class.

The exhibition runs April 6 – 29 at Beeler Gallery (60 Cleveland Ave.) and includes painting, sculpture, photography, design, video, animation, and other media. The opening reception for Collision will take place Friday, April 6, from 6 to 8 p.m. The reception and exhibition are free and open to the public.

“At the MFA show, you’re able to see raw work from the future creative leaders in Columbus,” said Molly Burke, Assistant Director of Graduate Studies at CCAD. “So you get a chance to check out what’s current and contemporary outside of a commercial gallery space.”

The exhibition features several pieces by students who are exploring women’s roles, rights, and visibility.

Take Erica Rodney, who created garments out of artificial black hair that explore the invisibility of African-American women in society.

“This work features a textile that has certainly gone unnoticed, Kanekalon, also known as artificial hair,” Rodney said. “This extremely versatile but inexpensive textile is uniquely important to black women, and it is no accident why it may have gone unrecognized by others.”

Another student, Elham Bayati, explores the roles of women in Iran in her paintings.

“I visually narrate a thousand years of Persian women’s souls … conveying the pressures of hegemonic masculinity and a society which tries to ignore them,” she said. “I narrate their love, anger, silence, sadness and happiness.”

Anita Maharjan, meanwhile, creates installations that tap into traditional Nepali weaving techniques.

“My process is inspired by the mats I learned to make growing up in Nepal, where my mother wove mats as part of her livelihood,” Maharjan said. “Weaving in my culture is mostly an uneducated woman’s job. As a fine artist, I weave mats with the same traditional techniques, introducing the craft of those unprivileged women.”

Other participating students include Vincent Alexander, Sharyn Beodeker, Justin Cattran, David Cooke, Matthew Dangler, Amanda Finkel, Katheryn Fisher, Julia Franceschi Guerra, Young-Mi Lee, Kavan Reames, Ismael Reyes Romero, Megha Singh, Hannah Watters, WeiTing Wei, Wenqian Xu, and Youji Zhi.


About Columbus College of Art & Design 

Columbus College of Art & Design teaches undergraduate and graduate students in the midst of a thriving creative community in Columbus, Ohio. Founded in 1879, CCAD is one of the oldest private, nonprofit art and design colleges in the United States, offering 12 four-year undergraduate programs and two graduate programs in art and design that produce graduates equipped to shape culture and business at the highest level. For more information, visit ccad.edu.


About CCAD's Graduate programs

CCAD has two graduate programs: the new Master of Design in Integrative Design program and CCAD’s MFA in Visual Arts: New Projects. For more information, visit ccad.edu/mdes or ccad.edu/mfa.


Media contact

Jeannie Nuss
Senior Media Relations Specialist
Columbus College of Art & Design
614.222.6162
[email protected]