The University’s annual Master of Fine Arts Exhibition will make a long-awaited homecoming to a newly remodeled museum today.
The exhibit, a showcase of art from graduate students in the College of Architecture & Allied Arts MFA program, will open to the public at 6 p.m. at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Nine students will show select paintings, photographs, prints, jewelry and other art.
The show marks the debut exhibition for all of the artists, museum spokeswoman Katie Sproles said.
“Such a big part of our mission is as an educational institution,” Sproles said. “We’re proud of all the hard work these students have done. It’s an honor to show their work.”
Sproles said it’s exciting to
display work by students at the
University’s own art museum.
“Typically, this show has a lot of interest with students because it’s their peers who are working on it,” Sproles said.
“The show at the museum is an extremely big deal,” said Kate Wagle, director of the Department of Art. “It’s an opportunity
to show in a first-class exhibition environment.”
The museum closed to the public in fall 2000 for a renovation project that lasted through January of this year, forcing the MFA exhibit to find a new home in the interim.
“When the museum closed, we had to find a new space, which felt a bit like a catastrophe,” Wagle said.
Wagle said it was difficult to find galleries with necessary security and proper lighting for the exhibition while the University museum was being remodeled, but the exhibit finally settled at Portland’s Pacific Northwest College of Art.
“We had an alum who was dean there,” Wagle said. “He was interested in housing us, and it ended up being a very good thing, but they’re glad to be home.”
Amjad Faur is one of the students whose work, a series of photos entitled “We Who Believe in the Unseen,” is on show. Faur hopes to earn his degree in June and described his art as a “tonally rich, black-and-white image of a table or pedestal and a stage where some sort of event takes place.”
One of his images shows a pillar of smoke descending upon a table.
“Some objects are wrapped or covered,” he said.
Faur said he tries to evoke the object rather than show the object.
“The spaces that I photograph … are very quiet spaces, like a museum or a morgue,” Faur said.
Religion is a foundation for his images, he said.
“The impetus for these photographs was a reconciliation of the unseen as it was described
in the Holy Quran, in the scripture, and a certain phenomenon that is
specific to large-format photography,” Faur said.
Faur added that he tried to combine the Islamic art tradition with the realism of photography.
“(Islamic art history) is traditionally non-representational, non-figurative; it traditionally relied on ornament and architecture, calligraphy,” he said. “(My artwork) is a reconciliation between that and photography, which is, historically speaking … this sort of imperial form of evidence. In its origin it was considered the purest form of scientific record.”
Chad Tolley, who also expects to graduate in June, will show a series of etchings at the exhibit.
“The body is a symbol that I use consistently throughout my work,” Tolley said in his artist statement. “How the body is postured, dissected and contorted indicates either a moment of conflict or reconciliation.
“My work is not about confronting ‘the enemy’ or illustrating a concept. It is about expanding my own understanding of how I perceive reality. I approach the work blindly, relying heavily on intuition.”
Faur and Tolley’s art will join the metalsmithing and jewelry by Ukiko Honda, photography by Angaleen Schroeder, paintings by Todd Griffith and Marshall Roemen, printmaking by Kristie Johnson, fibers by Sally Metcalf and visual design by Joseph Stengel-Goetz.
Each artist will have a chance to describe his or her artwork in a
series of gallery talks May 14, 21
and 25.
Wagle said the exhibit will help the students take the next step in their careers.
“Every exhibition on the résumé is going to help advance your career,” Wagle said. “An exhibition at a university art museum is … a very good venue to show in.”
Faur said he never assumed he would make a living as a full-time fine arts photographer but, while he had concerns about the idea museums were built on, he was excited to get his work out into the public.
“I have a lot of feelings about museums and museum culture as well as gallery culture,” Faur said. “I go back and forth. As appreciative as I am of this opportunity, it’s incredibly important to critique that platform, to critique the system and the history of the museum — its function as a cultural and commercial space.
“I would rather show my work … in someone’s home,” he said.
Faur said his advisers and others had been “of the most extraordinary help” on the project.
“I wish that their names were in there with mine, because they were all so helpful,” he said.
There are about 40 students in the MFA program, seven of whom will graduate this year, Wagle said.
The MFA exhibit’s public reception will last from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. today. The exhibit will remain on display until June 26. Admission to the museum is free for University students, faculty and staff.

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