DRAWING2013

The Drawing Department at the Maryland Institute College of Art is

pleased to present the 2013 Senior Thesis Commencement Exhibition.

The advanced development of drawing as a “high art” form with

this exceptionally tight-knit group embraces a community spirit and

commitment to produce remarkable work. A tradition of new beginnings

started with the Intro to Drawing course, the students refined their

skills with an exploration of personal expression and ideas. The journey

continued throughout sophomore, junior and senior years and has been

a process of discovery through different approaches of what drawing

can mean for the individual. Drawing is a discipline that runs through

all of the contemporary arts and I look forward to seeing what you

will do with your talent and skills in the future. I know you are highly

motivated to be the best you can be. You possess all the tools you will

need for meaningful expression within the social context in which you

live and work. The world is yours’ to conquer!

Bye for now,

Rex R. Stevens

Chair, Drawing and General Fine Arts Departments

DRW2013

When we gathered in Falvey Hall on the first Monday of our weekly

Senior Thesis meetings in late August of 2012, graduation seemed

really far away.

Subsequently, after being assigned a studio in the newly renovated

Studio Center and meeting your core peer group, you ventured on

a creative journey that led up to your fantastic commencement

exhibition.

“Visiting Artists at Noon”- our Monday Lecture Series included

- David Brewster, Jonathan Brand, Dawn Clements, Sharon Core,

Beatrice Coron, Mark Dion, Matt Evans, Julie Evans, Denise

Green, Marc Leuthold, John O’Connor, Clifford Owens, Christopher

Stackhouse, Eric Staller, and Victoria Wyeth.

Dawn Clements was in residence for the year, serving as the

Reba Stewart - Genevieve MacMIllan Endowed Chair

“Kalter Evenings at the Kramer” allowed you a chance to mingle

informally and up close with our visitors.

Your final Thesis Defense and first semester Review Board

provided intense, focused discussions of your artwork by a three-

person faculty jury.

You created professional quality artist statements, resumes,

narrative biographies and business cards, and you attended

numerous professional workshops. Some of you applied to

graduate schools, internships, residencies, grants, galleries

and prepared for life beyond MICA. Many of you participated in

exhibitions on campus and in the greater community.

Mainly you spent many hours in your studio developing your art.

This year’s Senior Thesis Core Faculty included Njideka Akunyili,

Ellen Burchenal, Gail Deery, Marian Glebes, Margaret Murphy,

Christine Neill, Barry Nemett, Phyllis Plattner, Robert Salazar,

Christopher Stackhouse, Jonathan Thomas, and Howie Lee Weiss.

Erika Diehl, a Hoffberger Graduate Student, was our Program

Teaching Assistant.

Various artists also visited your core groups at the invitation of your

faculty, enabling you to meet and discuss your artwork with

professionals in the field.

What a year!

I wish all seniors the best of luck for a rich and fulfilling artistic life.

Howie Lee Weiss

Head of Senior Thesis

GFA PTG DRW PRT

joyce chan • 08

beka burns • 07

nicole dyer • 11

angela hong • 13

adam jones • 14

heather kaehler • 17

maria schweitzer • 19

katherine stankewicz • 21

FEATURED ARTISTS

BEkA BURnS

D1

Monoprint, Pen and Ink

7.5in. x 9.5in.

My work expresses itself in cross-genre experimentation with varying subject matter over the span of several

mediums. Pushing medium, material and means of making projects has been a growing theme in my work

whether it is merging distinct disciplines into a single process or spanning the world of visual arts with other

venues such as illustration, music and non-profits. My work and who I am as an artist is developed with

relationship to community in mind and with that, an ever-increasing exploration of functionality, relate-ability

and accessibility in the development of the visual languages I choose and the collaborators I choose to work

with. In short my art is not really about the art (unless I’m trying to master a technique or discipline), but

ultimately it is about building relationships and impacting people for the better and it is within that impact that

my work can be considered complete.

D1

Monoprint, Pen and Ink

7.5in. x 9.5in.

beka burns • 07

Thoughts About Lions

Sumi Ink

11in. x 14in.

A Place To Be

Sumi Ink

11in. x 14in.

JOYCE CHAn

Silkscreen on paper with hand stitching

27’’X 27’’

Wallpaper is largely categorized under the realm of decorative art.

Originally from China, wallpaper is now used all around the world.

Decorative art has a history of borrowing, appropriating and influencing

other cultures.

Combining images of traditional Chinese arts and crafts with Western

designs explores multi-cultural blending and the idea of cultural

identities. In a world that is gradually becoming more international,

ideas from foreign cultures begin to fade away, much like wallpapers,

textiles and other forms of decorative art.

joyce chan • 08

nICOlE DYER

I Don’t Remember How We Got Here

Mixed Media on Paper

52” x 81”

My paintings are a diarrhetic-poop-shoot-catastrophe documenting my

life and times.

They’re about my lack of self-control at the buffet table. My slop at the

open bar. It’s about how I can feel so much love for people.  

Each painting is like a diary page - but in the form of an active, loud,

impulsive and vibrant booty dance. My figures are hungry and needy

and their eyes are far to big for their stomachs.

With paper, paint, charcoal, and pastels my paintings recreate recent

memories at a large scale. I work to bring the viewer into my world.

I Just Wanted To Love Someone

Mixed Media on Paper

52” x 71”

nicole dyer • 11

Hairface

Vine charcoal on paper

9”x 12”

Lovers

Ink on Paper

24”x 38”

AngElA HOng

Uncoiling the Unconscious

I attempt to convey the immediacy of living being – its reality and

movement – by uncoiling human mind’s twisted and highly destructive

desires that were repressed in the unconscious. Inspired by freak

shows, I take in unsatisfied desires as raw materials and reinterpret

them into transformed and dehumanized human form using ink

on matte vellum paper. Mutilated and decapitated, grotesque half-

animal and half-human creatures are born that speaks of life and

death – suffering in pain and tragedy of the flesh and mind. Yet,

highly characterized line qualities and unexpected placements in

the environment lighten and objectify discomfort and seriousness of

violence, depression and disability (both physical and mental).

Installation of gigantic creatures, interacting each other with twisted

and headless bodies awkwardly, allows viewers to approach drawings

as freak specimens. In that way, I provide access way to viewers to see

their own fragmented dreams, agony and havoc in reality of flesh and

unconscious without trauma.

Anybody Who Has Seen My Head?

Ink on vellum paper and parchment paper

Dimension varies -- Installation

angela hong • 13

Living Room

Sumi Ink on Paper

5” x 7.5”

ADAm JOnES

My drawings are about the aesthetic of ink and paper.

They explore how ranges of value and descriptive textures

are formed from solid black lines and their negative space,

or subtle shifts in light described with soft washes.

adam jones • 14

Forest

Sumi Ink on Paper

18.25” x 24”

Forest

Sumi Ink on Paper

18.25” x 24”

Pas de Deux

Paper Cut Jointed Dolls

Stop Motion Animation Still

HEATHER kAEHlER

Body image became a growing presence in my artwork

this term as I explored my memories of being a dancer

when I was younger. During those years I struggled with

never having the typical dancer’s body and eventually

stopped dancing all together. For Solo and Solo (Reprise)

I was inspired by the charcoal drawings of Donald Sultan

and Robert Longo. By studying how they utilized the

medium to bring life to still images I worked on capturing

movement within my silhouettes by referencing videos of

myself performing a routine.I set about exploring a new

medium by working with stop motion animation and paper

cut jointed dolls that were modeled after ancient Chinese

shadow puppets. Pas de Deux further develops the

narrative to my work and is a commentary on my growth

and acceptance of my body both outside of and within the

dancing world.

heather kaehler • 17

Solo

Charcoal

43” x 42”

Solo (Reprise)

Charcoal

43” x 42”

Scarf Sweep Guard to Mount (Americana)

Acrylic, Charcoal and Oil Pastel on Paper

83”x 70”

mARIA SCHwEITzER

Investigating the translation of human bodies in motion into mark

making through the reflexive use of my own body in motion, frees the

intuitive exercise of manual dexterity in drawing. Each drawing is a

documentation of the way I move in correlation to the movements I

observe.

When I work with large formats I attach drawing implements (charcoal

sticks, pastel crayons, paint brushes) to long wooden rods, in order to

extend a fuller engagement of my arms and torso in the graphing of

my pictures. Unexpected parts of my body which otherwise may not be

used are brought into the process of creating a line.

The subject matter in these images is the sport of Jiu Jitsu. Athleticism

as an analogue to art creates unanticipated poetic meaning and inspire

surprising narrative address in the viewer.

Side Arm Face Slap

Acrylic, Charcoal and Conte Crayon on Paper

5’11” x 3’ 6”

Naked Guillotine Back Mount

Acrylic, Charcoal and Oil Pastel on Paper

42”x 42”

maria schweitzer • 19

Scarf Sweep Guard to Mount (Americana)

Acrylic, Charcoal and Oil Pastel on Paper

83”x 70”

kATHERInE STAnkEwICz

My recent work has become focused on interpreting the relationship

between the innately physical, laborious language of drawing and the

representational nature of the photograph. I address these themes

by utilizing personal imagery derived from family photographs and

found imagery. I approach the photographs as if examining a remote

artifact, revealing an unknown territory and a cast of unfamiliar

figures. I have become captivated by the concept of the photographic

image, the nature of the snapshot aesthetic allows the viewer access

to a fragmented moment, yet its context is denied by it’s objective and

decontextualized nature. The photograph serves as a window into the

obscure, it serves as a piece of evidence that I use to decipher and

retrace my familial history by physically exploring and connecting with

the past through moments I have not experienced. Utilizing the window

as a motif symbolizing altered states of remembrance, these artifacts

examine themes of identity, cognizance, and absence of self. 

Untitled

Photograph and graphite on paper

30” x 20”

katherine stankewicz • 21

For more information on featured artists and programs of study please visit the Drawing home page at:http://www.mica.edu/drawing

Founded in 1826, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is the oldest continuously degree-granting college of art and design in the nation. The College enrolls more than 2,000 undergraduate, graduate, andcontinuing studies students from 46 states and 53 countries in fine arts, design, electronic media, art education, liberal arts and professional studies degree and non-credit programs. Redefining art and design ed-ucation, MICA is pioneering interdisciplinary approaches to innovation, research, and community and social engagement. Alumni and program-ming reach around the globe, even as MICA remains a culturalcornerstone in the Baltimore/Washington region, hosting hundreds of exhibitions and events annually by students, faculty, and other estab-lished artists.

This publication was made possible with the assistance of the MICA Alumni Association.

DRAwIng DEpARTmEnTMaryland Institute College of Art

1300 Mount Royal Ave.Baltimore, MD 21217Office: 410-225-2260

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