MFA Thesis Exhibitions at McMaster Gallery, SVAD, USC

Exhibition Dates:

Allison Dunavant, April 2-April 6, 2018

Edmari Hernandez Silen, April 9-April 13, 2018

Chad Penner, April 16-20, 2018

Joshua Knight, April 23-27, 2018

James Berry, April 30-May 4, 2018

McMaster Gallery, at the School of Visual Art and Design at the University of South Carolina, will be hosting the thesis exhibitions of five MFA candidates:  Allison Dunavant, Edmari Hernandez Silen, Chad Penner, Joshua Knight, and James Berry. Exhibitions will rotate each week from April 2 through May 4, 2018.

Allison Dunvant:

Culpability

a solo exhibition by artist Allison R. Dunavant

Exhibition Dates: April 2, 2018 – April 6, 2018

Opening Reception: Thursday April 5^th 2018, from 5-7 pm with gallery talk at 6pm

Allison R. Dunavant is a native of South Carolina, growing up in the North Myrtle Beach area. She has studied drawing and painting at Coastal Carolina University and is currently an M.F.A. candidate at the University of South Carolina. She has consistently been interested in social issues, particularly sexual assault and how it can be discussed visually. Within this exhibition Dunavant focuses on the victimization created by the prosecution of sexual assault, rather than by the abhorrent nature of the crime itself. She raises questions of both fault and accountability as they relate to sexual assault, and rape.

How does a serial rapist continually get arrested for rape yet serve no time in jail? How is it that he can continue his patterns of sexual assault? And if the same set of people have a role in making these decisions, in defining the legal recourse, can a level of culpability be assigned to them as well?

These are questions Dunavant intends the viewer to consider and respond to. She hopes the viewer will walk away with a further understanding of the reality necessary to seek justice in cases of sexual assault and reflect on what justice actually means…and whether it is attainable.

Edmari Hernandez Silen:

A/Hogar

a solo exhibition by artist Edmari Hernandez Silen

Exhibition Dates: April 9^th, 2018 – April 13^th, 2018

Opening Reception: Thursday April 12^th, 2018, from 5-7 pm with gallery talk at 6pm

Edmari Hernandez’s original place of birth is Arecibo, Puerto Rico, but she has spent most of her life in Jacksonville, Florida. She was born into an Army family, which allowed her to travel to various places such as Germany, Italy, Alaska, North Carolina, Texas, and Florida. Learning to live in a bilingual home and in a trilingual culture, she discovered at a young age that drawings were a universal visual representation of subjects that could be understood across languages and culture. She is fluent in Spanish and English. Hernandez earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of North Florida concentrating on Painting, Drawing, and Printmaking, with a minor in Art History. She is a Master of Fine Arts candidate at the University of South Carolina studying Painting and Printmaking.

Hernandez’s work explores her connection with the aquatic environment of the ocean as it sways her on a metaphoric journey home, to the islands of Puerto Rico and the tropical waters that reach from the West Indies to Florida. A visual narrative unfolds her life experiences as they relate to her home, the sea: investigating specific influential life events such as discovering local coral reefs, almost drowning in a rip current, dreaming of the sea, and snorkeling in the past two years. Accumulated layers of paints and prints convey large seascapes, obscuring depths in the distance, while certain features closer to the foreground are emphasized with fluid clarity. Although some of the seascapes appear desolate and drowned in blue, corals, aquatic plants, and fish endure throughout most of the pictured environments.

Because the ocean is a part of Hernandez’s home, she has seen firsthand environmental degradation humans have caused to the oceans and wishes to raise awareness of the importance of aquatic ecosystem as it relates to human life. In retaliation to this climate change, the ocean has also become a destructive force to her home on land. No matter the circumstances, whether from near-death experience to the destructive path of hurricanes, she will always find herself returning to the sea. Hogar is the Spanish meaning of “home,” which is central focus of the work. By adding the letter ‘a’ to the word, it changes to ahogar, meaning “to drown.” The artist’s intention is to submerse the viewer within the seascapes.

Chad Penner:

Superpower

a solo exhibition by artist Chad Penner

Exhibition Dates: April 16^th, 2018 – April 20^th, 2018

Superpower explores the relationship between the idea of American exceptionalism and America’s intimate relationship with and affinity towards violence in drawings that combine violent imagery and satirical commentary.  Penner allegorizes these concepts using popular superheroes, specifically Captain America, Superman, and Wonder Woman, which function as symbols of an idealized America.  These superheroes epitomize the superhero genre’s emblematic theme of resolution through conflict, paralleling America’s own historical and cultural association with violence.  The synthesis of the iconography of American superheroes with the pressing issues of sociopolitical unrest and systemic violence results in artwork that questions idealistic notions of America and its relationship to violence.

Chad Penner grew up in Roanoke, VA, surrounded by the Appalachian Mountains of southwest Virginia. He received his BA in Art and Visual Technology with a concentration in drawing from George Mason University in 2015.  Penner’s work exists at the intersection between drawing, art history, comic book history, and contemporary politics.

Joshua Knight:

a solo exhibition by artist Joshua Knight

Exhibition Dates: April 23rd, 2018- April 27th, 2018

My work deals with self-reflection. Through a series of self-portraits, I try to fulfill a question asked by my superiors, colleagues, and also myself, “why portraits?” To answer this question, I first have to take a step back to view myself physically and internally to uncover my true self. My exploration has lead me to my beginning, my childhood. Where I was neglected the love of a mother, the protection of a father, the wholeness of a family, and my native American heritage. My parents were alcoholics, drug abusers, and my father would abuse my mother. Their actions forced my siblings and I into foster care, where we were split up and thrown from home to home, which created abandonment issues, trust issues, openness and self-worth. My experiences aren’t a crutch to me, but a blessing that has pushed me to be better than where I came from.

My name is Joshua Knight. I was born and raised in South Carolina. I am from a small town called Dillon, where I adopted art within my last three years of high school. I attended Coastal Carolina University, where I concentrated mainly on painting. I applied to graduate school in an attempt to increase my knowledge and discipline in portraiture and the arts in general. While in graduate school, I have branched out from not only being a 2-D artist, but also a 3-D artist with an emphasis in Ceramics. Graduate school has left me indebted to a great group of professors.

James Berry:

a solo exhibition by artist James Berry

Exhibition Dates: April 30^th, 2018 – May 4th, 2018

My work deals with relationships. Visually the relationship is between the two different materials used together to create a single unified piece. For this body of work I have used heat and open flame to produce a parasitic effect between the two materials where one material (the ceramic) affects the other (wood) adversely. In the more cerebral sense the different materials are stand-ins for people and the relationships we have with one another. Our relationships are in constant state of flux, changing based on any number of conversations, misunderstandings, emotions and emotional ties, situational issues, and many other variables. While this project explores a categorically negative part of relationships, it allows me to question aspects of all relationships in my experience.

My name is James Berry. Originally from Alabama, currently in South Carolina to earn a Master of Fine Art degree, next destination currently unknown. I came into my undergraduate degree as a technical drawer and left as a ceramicist and a sculptor. Graduate school at USC has left me indebted to many professors of many different disciplines, and hopefully will see me off as an all around better artist because of them.
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McMaster Gallery is located in the University of South Carolina’s School of Visual Art and Design at 1615 Senate Street, Columbia, SC with accessible street parking on Pickens, Senate, and Henderson.

The gallery is free and open to the public and the hours are Monday – Friday 9:00 am – 4:30 pm (closed weekends and all university holidays) For more information contact: Kara M Gunter, Gallery Director email: gunterkm@mailbox.sc.edu phone 803.777.5752