Alfred University 2021 MFAs gather for curated exhibition at Sculpture Space NYC
Alfred University’s School of Art and Design MFA class of 2021 will exhibit a curated selection of work from their thesis exhibitions in the gallery at Sculpture Space NYC, located at 47-21 35th Street, Long Island City, NY.
Alfred University’s School of Art and Design MFA class of 2021 will exhibit a curated selection of work from their thesis exhibitions in the gallery at Sculpture Space NYC, located at 47-21 35th Street, Long Island City, NY.
The exhibition, Conflux: Alfred Ceramics MFA 2021, will be on view June 11-24. The gallery is open Tuesday-Saturday: 2-8 p.m., and Sunday by appointment. To schedule an appointment please email (masks are required)
The SSNYC Curatorial Program is dedicated to promoting contemporary visual art focusing on the research and exploration of three dimensional work with an emphasis towards ceramics. Sculpture Space NYC's mission is to stimulate creativity, new ideas and collaboration in ceramics-based investigations. Artists, designers and craftspeople of all backgrounds converge in this center to experiment, learn, make, reflect and grow artistically.
Artists in the Ceramic Art MFA class of 2021 whose work will be represented in the Conflux exhibition include: Uriel Caspi, Marianne Chenard, Justin Donofrio, Lukas Easton, Shauna Fahley, Erin Smith, Sami Tsang.
About the artists:
Uriel H. Caspi Jr.
Born in Haifa, Israel, Uriel holds the MFA in ceramic art from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. In 2018, he graduated magna cum laude from the ceramics department, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem. He has studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and Cranbrook Ceramics, MI. His work and installations have been showcased nationally and abroad. In 2019, he was awarded an emerging artist prize of the Hecht Museum Foundation.
Marianne Chenard
Marianne’s art practice articulates itself around a site-specific approach to installation art that attempts to illustrate the human perceptual relationship with nature while exhibiting attentiveness to natural environment agency. It questions a notion of responsibility or entanglement, permanence or ephemerality, perception or realism, and is sensitive to the issues of climate change and the pursuit of global environmental sustainability. Her artwork is materialized through performance, video, earth art, sounds, and installations. Originally from Rimouski Qc Canada, Marianne’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in Québec, Canada and France. She has taken part in several artist residencies, and frequently offers specialized training in image transfer techniques on clay. She holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, and an MFA in Ceramics from the New York College of Ceramics at Alfred University.
Justin Donofrio
Justin Donofrio grew up in Santa Cruz, CA. He holds a BFA from Colorado State University, Fort Collins (2016) and received the MFA from the New York College of Ceramics at Alfred University (2021). Donofrio has been a Windgate Summer Scholar at the Archie Bray Foundation, and a resident at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and Anderson Ranch Arts Center. He has been an exhibiting artist and tour co-manager with the Artstream Nomadic Gallery, in addition to being selected as one of Ceramics Monthly’s 2018 Emerging Artists. Donofrio was a participant in The Walter Gropius Master Artist Symposium at the Huntington Museum of Art in Fall of 2020.
Lukas Easton
Lukas Easton received his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in the spring of 2021. Easton received his BFA in ceramics, from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2017. In 2018, Easton completed a postbaccalaureate in ceramics at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), in New York. After returning from a three-month residency at Jenggala Keramik in Bali designing commercial tableware, he spent a semester teaching as adjunct faculty at RIT. Easton is a 2020 Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist and received honorable mention in the International Sculpture Center’s, Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Awards.
Shauna Fahley
Shauna Fahley is a figurative ceramic sculptor who was born in 1994 and raised in the evergreen landscape of Renton, Washington. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Washington in 2017. She was a 2019 summer resident at The Archie Bray foundation for The Ceramic Arts. She received the National Studio Potter Merit Award in the 2021 NCECA National Student Juried Exhibition. In the Spring of 2021 she graduated with a Masters of Fine Art in ceramics at Alfred University.
Erin Smith
Erin Smith (b.1980) was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 2003 she received her BFA in Product Design from Parsons School of Design and an MFA in ceramics from Alfred University. She has worked in the field of product design, interior design, event coordination, and as a small business owner in Minneapolis for the past 15 years. Exhibitions include Walker Art Center and Soap Factory, Minneapolis, MN, Concordia University, St. Paul, MN, Cooler Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, and the Center for Contemporary Crafts, Houston, TX.
Sami Tsang
Sami Tsang is a Canadian-born Chinese, raised in Hong Kong. The most impactful experience there was studying traditional Chinese painting for 7 years. At age 12, Tsang returned to Canada to pursue a passion for art. From a young age, expressing herself through art felt essential. She decided to move from Hong Kong to Canada for the specialized art program at H. B. Beal Secondary School. Beal introduced her to a wider range of visual arts, including painting and ceramics. In 2015, Tsang continued to study Ceramic Art at Sheridan College. At Sheridan, she was introduced to the clay community, and was given lots of guidance from my professors and peers for the next steps in her career. In 2021, Tsang received a Master of Fine Art - Ceramic Art from Alfred University in New York State.