Record of Existence

Record of Existence
featuring the work of artists from the MFA in Studio Art at University of Massachusetts Amherst

On View November 2-22, 2023
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 2 from 4 pm - 6 pm

Gallery Hours: Monday to Friday, 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM; Saturday, 1:00 - 4:00 PM and by appointment

Record of Existence came into being through the collective effort of MFA in Studio Art candidates at UMass Amherst. Featured in this show are new and recent works by eleven artists including: Adeyemi Adebayo, Ruthie Baker, Anna Chapman, CJ Hill, Kiran Jandu, Will Johnston-Rutledge, Bo Kim, Jason Kotoch, Hayle Lovstedt, Michael Medeiros, and Josue Salazar. With some in their first year and others midway through their studies, the exhibit is charged with a dynamic current of artistic growth. This rich exhibition boasts a vibrant range of media including text, photography, video, drawing, painting, new media, sculpture, and installation, among others. It is here where traces of one’s own presence are animated by diverse themes of place, belonging, intimacy, the body’s relationship to objects, nature, and the technologically mediated, as well as borders and boundaries. 

In Record of Existence, visitors will encounter a video installation by Jason Kotoch that pairs documentary footage along dual channels to explore community, industry, and ritual in the context of a former Massachusetts mill town. Kiran Jandu’s site-based installation furthers a continued study of walls built physically, metaphorically, and psychologically, and anticipates the scenic design for a future choreographic production premiering later this year. Hayle Lovstedt situates a trio of ceramic vessels in graduating height. The lush organic surface treatment and size invite the audience to consider how they would use, live with, or relate to these unique functional objects. In vivid contrast Adeyemi Adebayo’s collection of photographic portraits and scenes document migration, transience, and arrival at the individual and group level. CJ Hill aligns a grid of hand-drawn writings with a distinct voice amongst abstract drawings constructed from a dense network of marks on pages appearing to be torn from a sketchbook. Hill’s work encourages the viewer and reader to form unexpected relationships between text and visual abstraction. The linoleum prints and poetry of Michael Medieros bring the audience into mindful contact with his colorful world-building that incorporates and reimagines New Bedford’s seaside culture, ecology, magic, history, and myth. Anna Chapman’s large-scale drawing in black walnut ink and mixed media represents the cycle of death and growth both in medium and message with its ephemeral material quality, layered symbolism, and verdant narrative. Bo Kim plays with traditional conventions of scientific presentation through the reproduction, alteration, and invention of archival matter to question how identities are ordered and othered. Kim presents finely painted taxidermied birds and an intriguing collection of detailed research notes, sketches, and marginalia. In the center gallery, Will Johnston-Rutledge projects flight patterns, swarms, and flocks that leave the viewer in meditative mesmerance. His work privileges questions of how digital media can enact natural and restful forms. In the paintings of Josue Salazar, the viewer discovers the vastness of imagined vistas in a moment of contemplation. The work stimulates the sublime feeling of looking down on the natural and man-made from above. He summons the experience of flying through the clouds—feeling alive while catching a bird’s eye view of what is sparkling below. Evoking the exhibition title, Ruthie Baker’s analog and digital photographs capture and record fleeting moments of pain, longing, and intimacy through the ghostly trace of her own body vibrating in stunning movement.

The exhibition is on view until November 22nd at Herter Gallery. The Department of Art welcomes the audience to get to know and learn from the work of each of the artists in this exhibition. Wherever the point of your life this work finds you, let it be an invitation to think deeply about the ways you live, document, and celebrate each moment. What is the record of your existence?

–  Jeff Kasper
Assistant Professor
Department of Art
UMass Amherst

About the Artists:

Adeyemi Adebayo
In my work, I explore loneliness, age, migration, and strife. I’m interested in photography alongside other art forms as means to evaluate moods and dispositions critically, both in the presence of bodies and the potential absence of, as they undergo subjugation, injustice, prejudice, and exploitation, or simply as they migrate. I am also interested in using art and photography to examine and criticize our approach to activism.

Ruthie Baker
Ruthie Baker is a photographer and mixed media artist working primarily with analog and alternative photographic processes.  Ruthie is interested in capturing the mundane experiences of daily life, frequently using poetry, patterns, and personal objects to examine themes of memory, tradition, self, and family. Her work centers on the emotional significance of modest objects and interpersonal relationships, as well as the fragility of human life. 

Anna Chapman
Anna Chapman is an artist and educator passionate about continuously exploring transformative approaches to art making, community practice, and connection to land in light of destabilized socio-ecological contexts.

CJ Hill
CJ Hill is an artist who creates drawings, objects, and written narratives as a means of grappling with this strange existence. Before coming to UMass, CJ lived in Providence, RI. where he worked as an art handler, spent time at the sea, and lived cooperatively with other artists. He received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2012, and has exhibited in galleries in New York, Rhode Island, and elsewhere.

Kiran Jandu
Kiran Jandu is an interdisciplinary artist working in installation and movement. Everyday objects and architectural structures serve as anchors in Kiran’s creative research - with a current focus on the materials and metaphors within walls.

Will Johnston-Rutledge
Will Johnston-Rutledge is a multimedia artist whose work includes animation, documentary film, and autobiographical comics. His current work is inspired by the emergent behavior of birds, fish, and other collective species. He is interested in creating digital spaces that are sources of comfort and calmness and how simple rule sets can be used to simulate complex natural systems.

Bo Kim
Bo Kim leverages open-source systems in libraries and museums to investigate post-colonialism and institutional structures. Her work delves into the tension between authenticity and forgery, challenging entrenched assumptions about history, race, and culture. Kim engages in various mediums including painting, drawing, and installation, transitioning from historical and scientific archives of the past to the re-excavation of contemporary archives. Their primary focus lies in understanding how historical archives and image-based processes contribute to the construction of racialized identities. Kim also takes a keen interest in how objects and specimens reflect historical and cultural moments. They are dedicated to unraveling the reasons behind the values we assign to certain aspects of our shared heritage.

Jason Kotoch
Jason Kotoch is a Western Massachusetts-based artist and cook. He started cooking because his dad told him that if he wanted to do art, he should pursue culinary art in order to make some money—and something about lineage. Jason’s dad emigrated to the United States from Lebanon in the 70’s and worked as a machinist at a bucket factory. Jason’s mom was born in a small town in West Virginia in the heart of appalachia. She encouraged him to do whatever made him happy. She also told him his grandma's biscuit recipe one afternoon. He wrote it down somewhere. Jason’s mom worked in a plastic factory that manufactured pink flamingo lawn ornaments—she was much more pragmatic. Jason’s work explores labor, community, history, and the politics of everyday life.  

Hayle Lovstedt
Hayle is a ceramic artist from Los Angeles, CA. Her work is concerned with form, function, and the integration of objects into everyday life.

Michael Medeiros
Michael Medeiros works at the intersection of words and artistic imagery, with a deep questioning of perceptive and conceptual experience driving his practice. Primarily a poet and ceramist, he also connects photography, printmaking, fiction, and narrative non-fiction into multidisciplinary personal work and community collaborations. Mindfulness and the exploration of varied methods of creative understanding and implementation are essential aspects of his artmaking and teaching.

Josue Salazar
Josue Salazar is primarily a landscape artist and educator living in Western Massachusetts. He was born in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, and immigrated to the U.S. when he was still in grade school. He spent most of his life in California, where he received his Bachelor's in Studio Art Methods from California State University Sacramento. His art takes into account moments in life that inspired wonder and reflection and draws from those moments the content of his work.

This event was made possible with generous support from the UMass Fine Arts Council.

 

Gallery Hours:
Mon – Fri: 11 AM – 4 PM
Sat: 1 PM – 4 PM
(Closed on Sundays and state holidays)