Graduate art students discussed their work in the 36th Annual MFA Thesis exhibition at the Blaffer Art Museum. | /The Daily Cougar

The Blaffer Art Museum held its second MFA Exhibition Gallery Talk on Wednesday, featuring six of the 18 artists from the 36th MFA Thesis exhibition.

Graphic design junior Helen Nerio found the gallery talk interesting.

“It was pretty interesting just to hear all the artists and to know where the work comes from,” Neiro said.  “Sometimes you see something you don’t understand. It’s pretty interesting to hear their take on it and how they came up with it.”

She especially enjoyed third-year graphic design graduate and professor Tom So’s “Oblivia.”

“I heard about them going through the process, and they seem very intriguing,” Nerio said. “I was kind of excited to see all the things that they did, especially downstairs where everything is silk screen. I’ve done silk screen myself, and I know how hard it could be.”

The Daily Cougar sat down with So to discuss his exhibition.

The Daily Cougar: How is it different explaining your work on its opening day versus at the gallery talk?

Tom So: I guess on opening day, it was a lot of excitement and a lot of not really knowing what’s going to be like. I needed some time to sort of put my thoughts together post-show, and that helped me put my artist talk together.

TDC: The last time we spoke, you spoke of what your piece was made of. This time, we learned there is a story involved with the character Franking Cabot. I noticed it went from Franklin Cabot, to Frankie, and then to Francine. Is that the same person?

TS: Yes, it’s the same person. So (for) this project, I wanted to explore the narrative possibilities of objects and also exploring silk screening and how I can tell my story and how people can engage with the exhibition. So I wanted to create “Oblivia” as a way to display my passion for collecting. My central character would travel to Oblivia and then embody these different personas, so because of that narrative aspect, I was able to collect a different assortment of different images related to the different time periods and then create personas out of those.

TDC: Would you say the collectibles represent memories and experiences?

TS: Yeah, because people have different associations with the objects and also the images that were used. I wanted to see how people could connect to images and then also how the narrative possibilities to the images and the objects.

Six more MFA Thesis exhibition artists will be featured in a gallery talk from noon to 1 p.m. today at the Blaffer Art Museum, and the exhibit will run until April 19.

arts@thedailycougar.com

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“Graphic artist delves into silk screen exhibit” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar