Join the MassArt community for What Do We Have To Say?, on view at the Student Life Gallery through July 12, 2022. This exhibition is curated by Kristin Beth Powers (MFA'22 3D Fine Arts) in collaboration with Nicholas Milkovich (MFA'22 3D Fine Arts) and Sierra Caley.

Featured Artists:

• Michael Agahowa

• Sierra Caley

• Jim Cambronne

• Kierra Crenshaw

• Lawrence Kupferman

• Nicholas Milkovich

• Dara Morgenstern

• Madison Suniga

• Scott Offen

• Jenny Olsen

• Kristin Beth Powers

• Stephen Powers

• Chuck Stigliano

What do we as artists say when a group committed to the arts congregate? Who are we? What do we want to say? And what do we have to say? 

On June 7, 2022 the Trustees of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design congregated in person for an end-of-year celebration to honor MassArt education, artists, and their art. What Do We Have To Say? is designed to foster conversation among the MassArt community about the connectivity between artists through time and medium. This exhibit brings together MassArt professors, department chairs, MFA alumni and current students to form a common dialogue regarding the expanding field of two and three dimensional art focusing on what artists are saying now, and have been saying for some time. 

Lively ceramic Wart Hogs by Charles Stigliano, retiring Professor of 3D Sculpture, open the exhibit, showcasing his wit and ease within sculptural form and medium. In regard to his approach to arts education during these COVID years, Chuck has stated, “I realized students felt uneasy and separated from each other, I thought I should do something to get everybody together.”  Chuck builds community, and this exhibition focuses on the same goal.

Abstract drawings by Jim Cambronne, retiring professor and chair of 2D Painting, hold the viewer’s eye, perhaps to walk beside Jim as he strives “to traverse the realm between the visible and invisible. Shadows guide me on my journey between presence and absence.”  

Abstract Expressionist paintings by Lawrence Kupferman (1909-1982), professor and chair of the painting department until his retirement in 1969, characterize his fascination with mystery and form, once saying "...Life is mysterious. I find relevance in the abstract, for in it is the womb of existence." 

Alongside our celebrated professors is recent work by MFA graduates through the challenging COVID years of 2021-2022. Moments of light and shadow, expansion and reflection, exposure and secrecy are found throughout these works, revealing similar discourse - form and structure, visible and invisible, presence and absence, mystery in existence - highlighting the communal language of art. Sierra Caley, Kristin  Powers, Michael Agahowa, and Nicholas Milkovich all play on the fine line between dimensionality, providing multiple layers through which to comb meaning. Jenny Olsen provides an uncanny honesty in her portraits; and Madison Suniga provides a rough brutality with his application of color.

Completing the circle of community are two current MFA graduates, Dara Morgenstern and Kierra Crenshaw, working in open space, providing possible entries and exits, engaging a sense of curiosity and discovery.

Across roles, platforms, and decades, all of the artists in What Do We Have To Say? are and have been continually searching to find meaning, to delve into the mysteries of existence, and to engage in contemporary discourse, adding their voices to a community dedicated to the advancement of the arts.

Image:  What Do We Have to Say? at the Student Life Gallery, featuring work from (L-R) Kristin Beth Powers, Jenny Olsen, and Chuck Stigliano