NEW TALENt
dara morgenstern
Dara Morgenstern is an artist from Los Angeles, California. She received an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2022 and a BFA from ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California in 2019. Prior to this, she studied graphic design at California Institute of the Arts and worked as a graphic designer and art director. Her work has been exhibited in the United States and internationally.
Artist Statement
Pictures are magic. Consider a picture of a place. Or perhaps more accurately, consider the illusion of “placeness” we are able to see in pictures — pictorial space on a two-dimensional surface organized such that it brings a three-dimensional space from imagination into tangible reality. A flat, opaque surface covered in colorful goo becomes a window into somewhere else. Magic, truly. This body of work simultaneously constructs and maps a painted picture world. These picture are often in fact more often more diagramatic than picturesque, and self-consciously have more the quality of the behind-the-scenes featurette rather than the actual film. Painting it, I attempt to discover a set of “natural laws” singular to a place that exists only in pictures. Fancifully, I think of as the space between frames of all the other pictures from the history of art and visual production. It is a world composed of uncanny valleys, or featureless uncanny planes. Its great monuments are stolen from all my favorite pictures, site constructions in a vast imaginary somewhere, bounded by my limited frame of reference. These paintings are like fragments of memories of places I have not seen until I paint them, signs simultaneously pointing toward a metatext of picture making and then back to themselves.Clay has always been the outlet to help me navigate my anxiety. The intimate physicality of it, and the mess and chaos it creates, is what keeps me engaged. The sound of water, the “vast blue” color of the sea, and the light that penetrates the clay, are what has brought me to my current body of work. My drive is to give the viewer of these works a sense of meditative calm as the sculptures give me during my creative process. Using water and light as integral parts of the experience of viewing my work, in addition to the sculptural form, the sound of moving water and the light cast of the surrounding space, elicits the sense of self-reflection.
hannah steele
Hannah Steele received her MFA from Boston University this year, and received a BFA from Messiah College, Grantham, PA in 2019. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in the U.S. and in Orvieto, Italy.
Artist Statement
I make oil paintings on canvas from observation of still-lifes which I construct in my studio. I begin with an armature like a wooden frame, pane of glass, or window sill which I use to hold and drape found foliage, branches, and other debris over. These inert still-life constructions transform into forests, bushes, and canopies — lively tangled swarms to visually wrestle with and travel throughout. I want to contend with their infinity of visual information by practicing a sustained observation, embracing their overwhelming and at times disorienting nature, and by chasing moments of clarity within.
As I observe and paint these still-lifes I begin with large transparent washes, a fast tempo of mark making, searching lines, and an expansive focus. I then progress with chiseled-out detail, slowness, a narrowing of focus, and decisive solidifying marks. Through retaining this range of perception and mark making in the finished piece, the searched for coexists with the found, the primordial coexists with the heavily built, and the surfaces are preserved in a state of being actively discovered.
I relish in this process of formation, in the searching for these forms. I relish in how the more I look and describe in an effort to nail these forms down, the more and more the paint builds up until the surface transforms into a lively, buzzing landscape of its own, every inch holding the intensity of my gaze, hand, and paint.
jiaxuan (terra) wang
Jiaxuan (Terra) Wang
Originally from China, Jiaxuan Wang earned her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University in 2023. Her BFA was earned at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition to exhibiting at both East Coast and West Coast venues, Wang has worked in film, editing and design in both China and the U.S.
Artist Statement
I’m obsessed with keeping secrets from my father, who had been treating me with tight control and unquestionable authority. As a rebellion against his authority, I got a large tattoo of a Japanese Geisha on my back when I was 18. Reflecting on this tattoo, I question if I can achieve success, acceptance, and relevance as a Chinese female artist. Thus, I want to address my experience of subjugation to male authority, much like a Japanese Geisha. In order to explore the personality of the self as well as to face my fear of subjugating to male authority, I began relating to the man in my life who has had the biggest impact on me. Drawing from my personal experiences as a source of inspiration, I begin self-exploring journey that aim to highlight the themes of Asian male authority, femininity, objectification, and subconscious behaviors. Because of my experience around male authority, I have been working through this material in my artwork. My work speaks to my father, without making images of him. In doing so, I am addressing his emotional interiority and its impact on my interior world.