Since my youth in Ukraine, I have been inspired by the first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, who went to outer space in April 1961. Since then I have been imagining the fragments of an unknown space that is divided into a variety of different felt locations. I am interested in envisioning fractured terrains, where the intrusion of sharp elements interact with a soft transparent and atmospheric space. I want to create a sense of discord as a metaphorical reflection on the absurd, political situation in Ukraine where I am originally from. For me, navigating or transitioning from one imaginary space to another through the act of making painting feels equivalent to experiencing a new place for the first time.

Through painting, I use materiality to describe the material world. By rooting my practice in visual culture and art history, I seek to extend the meaning of images beyond their initial form. The coalescing of opposing and complimentary formal elements accentuate the visual and contextual friction. This allows the work to exist in an ambiguous state. Seen together, my works appear disparate, but they suggest alternative meanings through association with one another. The works can exist on their own, but engage in dialogue when juxtaposed against each other. Although about specific occurrences, the works afford the viewer their own interpretations.

Black’s work presents The Ubiquitous, an entity that propagates into subhuman beings that ravage the deserts in search of sacrificial circles or homing beacons. Their physical nature is heavily influenced by: Languid, liquid human body language; the otherworldly visage and tenacity of plant life; the heaving monstrosity of mountains and rock formations; and the joyous allegory of movie monsters, puppets, and pulp fantasy. The Ubiquitous is explored in Black’s whimsical writings and intensive drawings which are characterized by her mark’s immediacy; and her work seeks to understand this Being’s purpose, function, and correlation to her own life..

Brief Artist Statement by Randal Robins as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Interiority” in the Cora Stafford Gallery on the campus of the University of North Texas on March 15-25, 2021.

My artwork is a record of mundane yet impactful experiences of everyday life. The subject of memory and my interest in pictorial space create a visual narrative of the physical and metaphorical ways I navigate the world. I envision space as sometimes a place of comfort, or at times a souvenir of a distant event. Through my paintings, I process and rediscover the past through the intimacy and tactility of mark-making. Each work presents a bittersweet narrative where I examine the complex circumstances that have brought me to a specific moment in time.

Artist Statement from the MFA Exhibition: "In my recent work, I have expanded upon the deconstruction, reconstruction, and reflection that has informed my artistic process for many years. My working method involves using remnants from previous works; they reappear in their original form or are reworked, aged destroyed, or recreated from different materials. My Process allows me to illustrate the passage of time as older work takes on new forms in a renewed context. New connections begin to surface as my paintings and accompanying objects are layered into a work about the passage of time as well as other passages; a migratory mentality know to all who live away from home."

In my work, I create collections of small objects from a variety of materials and curate them into a larger composition in space. These objects are made from clay, wood, paint, sand, beads, cardboard, paper, yarn, tape, and other materials. I arrange these objects into a composition that is informed by painting, which manifests as the wall and floor serving as substrate, along with vinyl shapes delineating areas of the painting as a whole. In these arrangements I aim to break away from taught boundaries in regards to physical space and expectations of familiar materials.

In A Narrative Rewritten, I explore two distinct periods of my past. One group of work deals with the emotional effects of trauma I experienced as a child during years of practicing ballet. The other celebrates a pivotal moment of spiritual awakening that gave me the strength to confront internal falsehoods I previously developed. I paint from observation, to engage with my subject and to ground myself in the present moment. In my oil paintings, I paint representationally, while delving in to the spectrum of abstraction. I use imagery symbolically from ballet and boxing to represent a shift from inadequacy to empowerment.

Each of my oil or pastel paintings is an observation of seemingly mundane familiar places that I encounter day-to-day. I think of my art as a kind of visual journalism, where I examine common human emotions evoked by a careful consideration of the substance of light interacting with spaces or objects. The naturalistically rendered compositions are cropped and depicted in small fragments, allowing the viewer a brief glimpse into a quiet portrayal of the world. Essentially, my art allows me to share my sensibilities and to connect with others through portraits of ordinary, yet intimate, moments in time.

I make work that engages the porous and sensate body. The larger question for me is the interdependency of how we exist within our environment and how our environment exists in us. Caves, deep time, and the feminine landscape factor into my work, as well as thinking beyond a humancentered narrative to address concerns about the earth. My process involves using raw pigment, wax, rain, dirt, and the language of abstraction to point to a raw, interior space. My source material is equal parts imagination and field research, most recently into cave systems.

Brief Artist Statement by Maria Haag as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Maelstrom” in the Cora Stafford Gallery on the campus of the University of North Texas on March 15-23, 2021.

Brief Artist Statement by Augustine Uzor as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Memories of the Future" at The Gough Gallery Space in the Patterson Appleton Art Center in Denton, TX on February 20-28, 2021.

Brief Artist Statement by Cosmo Jones as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Green Man Action Cycle” at Cora Stafford Gallery, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas frpm March 15-21, 2021.

Artist Statement from the MFA exhibition: In my recent work, I explore my identity as a first-generation American, using my painting practice to think about early memories of living in-between two cultures. These remembered moments allow a space for me to consider how both cultures merge. Portraying vivid memories through colorful recognizable objects and body parts, memories take on a new context, showing the passage of time, and reflecting on how memories take on new meaning. My desire to save these moments relates to my wish to name what makes me belong, and what marks me as unique, within the two cultures in which I exist.

Brief Artist Statement by Marianna Seaton as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Golden Anecdoche” in the Cora Stafford Gallery on the campus of the University of North Texas on March 15-21, 2021.

I use the domestic as a locale to consider the function of a queer body within the “American Dream.” I frequently remove the objects from their intended uses through various methods of alterations. Breaking things down to queer identity, objects, space, and community, I consider each object as a stand-in for individuals liberated from the pressure of preconceptions and mastery. Each lends itself towards the community identity, serving individually as separate functions within the experience, but also collectively serving as an invitation for on-lookers to join this community that we would define together.