Meet the Next Wave of MFA-Bred Artists Without Setting Foot on Campus

UNC’s art MFA and Duke’s MFA|EDA, which couples experimental visual and documentary practices, reliably restock the local art landscape. Starting this week, when both programs begin their 2019 thesis exhibits, you can discover the next wave of local artists while hardly venturing into remote, inaccessible campus galleries.

On the Duke side, Power Plant Gallery on the American Tobacco Campus has a double reception on March 22 for Jinyu Liu’s The Factory, a photo-and-film exhibit about state-owned factories in Luoyang, and Jacob Moss’s One Arm Dove Hunt, about people with Ectodermal Dysplasia.

Full Frame Theater on the ATC is also a site of much action. On March 22, Hannah Faye Waleh premieres Baba, a documentary combining Persian children’s games, animations, and interviews. On March 23, Sarah Riazati premieres monumental, a documentary about Southern history and monuments in Durham. On March 24, Tamar Rachkovsky premieres Home in E Major, about friendships formed after moving from Jerusalem to Durham, while March 29 brings the premiere of Dani Smith’s West from Ruby to Rose, partly inspired by Mark Twain’s Roughing It. On March 30, David L. D’Agostino premieres Dixie Garden Drive, a feature-length documentary in which an encounter with a landlord on the rural edge of Chapel Hill leads to a surprising confession.

March 31 at the Rubenstein Arts Center brings the reception for Felicity E. Palma’s Fra la Medusa e l’Abisso (Between Medusa and the Abyss), a reflection on memory turning on a feminist critique of Freud. And you can handle one campus visit, to Jameson Gallery on March 28, for the reception for Lishan Guo’s Space Tells, a photo project about frames in the world.

UNC didn’t just get off campus—they got clear out of Chapel Hill, where art spaces have sadly become in short supply. This year’s artists are Jonh Blanco, Sarah Elizabeth Cornejo, John DeKemper, Peter Hoffman, Michael Keaveney, Jasper Lee, Laura Little, Reuben Mabry, and Chieko Murasugi, and you can catch them all in Under the Rug, their group exhibit at The Fruit in Durham. After the opening reception on March 23, the exhibit runs until its April 6 closing reception.