Parsons Fine Arts 2023 MFA Thesis Exhibition: Matter As Fallen Light

Opening Reception: April 22, 5–8pm, 66 Fifth Avenue, New York

Participating Artists: Ashleigh Abbott, Aliya Al-Adwani, Bel Andrade, Katie Chin, Fiel Guhit, Lisa Hennig-Olsen, Molly Bliss Kiefer, Summer McCroskey, Luke McCusker, Ash Moniz, Hali Nelson, Evelina Nolin, Henrik Nordahl, Libby Paloma, Nat Peterson, Gino Romero, Pauline Rossignol, Shay Salehi, Fahmy Shahin, Michelle Silva, Chelsea Steinberg-Gay, Richard Valentín, Yifei Wang, Boya Ye, Noah Zhou, Shining Zhu, Xianfan Zhu

In Matter As Fallen Light — on view from April 23 through May 7 at the Sheila Johnson Design Center in Manhattan’s Union Square neighborhood — the 27 practices of this year’s graduating cohort defy a single rubric, yet together manifest more than the sum of their parts. Returning to their studios and each other’s company as the pandemic’s restrictions receded, many approach space and presence, whether physical or virtual, with new urgency. A surplus of sculpture and installation extends beyond two storefront galleries into adjacent corridors, windows, entrances, and the building’s exterior and street. Sightlines yield a mutating object theater of blued steel, whorled paper, fired clay, neon, textiles, twine, even a 1969 Lincoln Continental — as well as electronic and projected light. Forms give way to overlapping subject matter, from personal and cultural memory; to translation, linguistic or technological; to idle time, economic abstractions, and ecological fragility.

Parsons Fine Arts MFA is a two-year, cross-disciplinary program led by an internationally accomplished faculty committed to expanding the formal, intellectual, and conceptual dimensions of emerging artists’ work. Embracing interdisciplinary approaches to making and thinking about visual culture, the program promotes global understanding of the arts. Visiting artists and curators in 2022 and 2023 included ektor garcia, Dora Budor, Shaun Leonardo, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Arghavan Khosravi, Eric N. Mack, Jules Gimbrone, Institute for Queer Ecology, Eugene Ofori Agyei, and Victoria Fu. In 2022, QS World University Rankings named Parsons as the number one college for art and design in the US and number three worldwide for the fifth year in a row.

For more information, visit the exhibition page or our website.