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.

This workshop is presented by members of a University of North Texas research team. First, the team will overview their experience as members of the research team and share experience in areas such as trust formation, team roles, productivity, work-life balance, faculty-students interaction, peer and faculty mentorship, dissertation preparation, and job seeking. Second, the workshop will discuss and brainstorm how this format can be implemented for organizations both with faculty-student teams and with peer-directed teams. Finally, successes and challenges are openly discussed with audience.

Brief Artist Statement by Russell Anderson as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Modified Aesthetics on an Inner Space” in the Cora Stafford Gallery on the campus of the University of North Texas on March 29-April 9, 2021.

Artist Statement from the MFA Exhibition: "My work expresses personal experiences dealing with race, identity, and social critique. As an African American woman born and raised in Texas, it is common for me to be the only black face in white spaces. Being framed as the "other" has been ingrained in my existence, affecting the way I navigate through life. Throughout my time in graduate school, I have constructed my own framework of identity. Referencing history and its permanent effects on the present, my work explores the internal and external complexities of being a black woman in America today."

Juan Barroso's artwork depicts Mexican labor and the immigrant experience at the border. With the current political administration enforcing policies that dehumanize and force immigrants into the shadows, recognizing an immigrant’s humanity is vital. As the son of immigrant parents, he pays homage to his people and the dignity of their labor. He mixes 2- dimensional imagery, influenced by personal narratives, with 3-dimensional functional forms. Using a small watercolor brush, he paints his images with thousands of dots in a timeconsuming and labor-intensive process that becomes an act of devotion.

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..

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.

Photographs from the MFA Exhibition "Draw Me Near" as shown at the Cora Stafford Gallery.

Artist Statement from the MFA Exhibition: "This body of work contains digital photographs, sculptures and wallpapers to highlight a personal journey through motherhood. Traditionally, the roles of a new mother have been handed down from generation to generation. A mother teaches her daughter how to soothe her fussy infant, her domestic responsibilities, to maintain her feminine mystique. Though many of these traditions of mouth to ear to mouth familial heritage continue, today’s society inundated women with visual language to remind them that although they can challenge the traditions and their choice to participate, those same discarded ideals of how to act or perform will continue to tug at the shoulder. "

Artist Statement from the MFA Exhibition: "I did everything right. I counted my carbs, meal prepped, and joined the high school volleyball team (For exercise of course. Heaven forbid it be for fun). All growing up, I always assumed that things would get so much easier when I stepped into adulthood. I would be comfortable in my body. Spoiler Alert, that didn’t happen. Before this starts to sound like a Judy Blume novel, let me explain. A shot of apple cider vinegar, 13 vitamins, gluten free diet, and portion control. These are all aspects of my routine that I dread but they keep me going. The concept of routine as composition really resonated with me when I first made these dietary changes. Much like repeated elements in a composition, repeated elements in my routine are what keep me going, help me function, and make me a successful composition (or human, whatever you want to call it). So why do I get bogged down by the objects that are supposed to be helping me? As a woman who has been on some sort of diet since age 12, it was difficult to come to terms with the fact that your body …

Belief is our acceptance of an optimal truth. We embed a belief into the things in our life that give us comfort or strength. Whether they are recognizable in popular culture or are our own private object, their value shifts to what we need them to be. My current work is inspired by multi-cultural historic luck or from my own practice of object collection. They are physical objects that are representative of ritual or ones that “bring” luck. The objects are primarily wearable jewelry, although I have included the pocket as a location of wearability. Regardless of how or where they are worn, they are meant to be valued by the wearer in some capacity.

My work consists of clothing jewelry hybrids that combine the sentimentality and materiality of jewelry with the coverage and protection of clothing.

Artist Statement from the MFA Exhibition: "Trappings is a huntress’ vanity room installation, exhibiting the duality of being feminine while utilizing masculine skills and traits. Keela Dee Dooley is a metalsmith from southwest Virginia, in the Appalachian Mountains where southern culture has gender expectations, stereotypes, and misconceptions. Working in what is considered a “man’s world” she challenges the expected role of a young woman by being skilled in a traditionally male dominated field, ferrous metalsmithing, and referencing the traditionally male dominated practice of hunting. Breaking the boundaries of industrial equipment and material, she creates elegant yet intimidating wearable sculptures out of steel on the CNC Plasma Cutter."

Surveillance capitalism is pervasive within our everyday lives: turning every movement, emotion, or thought into a commodity to be turned into an ad for us. As our meta-data is bought and sold to third-parties, we are coerced into buying products from targeted ads. This system of behavioral manipulation combines human psychology and emotion analytics to make us nodes within an accurate capitalist network. My work scrutinizes current economic structures through videos, installations, AR and digitally printed garments. In my practice, I satirize data collection, extraction, and commodification through an accumulation of my own user information from large tech companies– including Meta, Google, and Apple. This data is used to digitally produce patterns and create a collection of garments. Through this production of clothing, my work visually represents the symbiotic relationship between consumer capitalism and surveillance capitalism.

My current work investigates visual meditations on water and its connection to the human experience. Through observation and reflection, my process allows me to make associative connections with water’s powerful metaphorical qualities. Water’s multiplicity of meaning is vast. It is a complex force of nature that begs to be explored through various modes of thinking. Mindfulness combined with the act of discovery and adaptation allows my imagery to evolve organically. Working between drawing and printmaking, I create variable series of artworks, that oscillates between mimicry and abstraction as a contemplation of our human relationship and natural forces.

This work is a developing portrait of women workers who are involved in labor rights advocacy within the context of the maquiladora (assemblage factory) industry in Mexico. I have traveled to do research in Mexico by making photographs and through collecting recorded testimonies from the women workers I come to meet through an organization called the Comité Fronterizo de Obreras. The resulting artwork I make includes photographs, handmade books, video, sculpture and works on paper. Ultimately, my translation of the empowerment and stories of these women workers into works of art are at the center of my practice.

Artist Statement from the MFA Exhibition: "In my artwork I explore my concept of home in relation to my memories growing up in the border cities of Juarez, Chihuahua and El Paso, Texas. Being a young immigrant, the only constants in my life were my sense of home and the common landscape on both sides of the border. In order to create a connection of that time and place, I investigate materials that are symbolic to my Mexican heritage and my life in the United States through the combination of traditional handwork and digital fabrication. I utilize various materials such as clay and corn husks, unifying them through the formal elements of value, line, and shape. My work becomes abstracted to symbolize the passage of time and the way in which our memories are imperfect representations of events."

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.

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.

Memory Beast was a series of experiments in multispecies collaborative storytelling. A new tool was created, a memory beast, a holotype representing our ideas of specific species, based on memories and drawings collected in participatory research. The fabricated memory beasts, placed next to their biological counterparts, made visible the conflation of living species with personal memory and cultural imagery. Using this new tool, implanted with sonic recordings of cows, the beginnings of an interspecies pidgin language was developed. Memory Beast imagined and enacted new pathways to finite flourishing on a wounded earth, planting story seeds for alternative realities.

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 Jihye Han as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "11,009km” at the Goldmark Cultural Center in Dallas, TX on April 9-May 7, 2021.

In my work, I explore the ancient occult concept of the egregore or collective thought-form and its continued relevance in contemporary life. One might not think of the systems that we operate in today as ritual in nature, especially those that utilize new technology. We may imagine cyberspace as the ultimate rational and objective realm where all things can be categorized, quantified, and monetized. However, it is a place saturated with ceremonial situations upon close inspection. I seek out these ceremonies of niche digital communities and reconstruct them in new forms operating adjacent to their original stream.

I combine maternal feminist experiences with hand-built ceramic vessels to create functional ritual objects. Pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood transformed me. I am not just “mother" but also “artist” and “woman:” this multiplicity is intersubjectivity. I reconciled my conflicting priorities through my art with authentic testimony, memorialization, and activism. Rich red earthenware is clothed with rhythmic, radial pinch marks and stylized floral illustrations. Pottery has a strong association with the body, combining naturally with corporeal forms. My installation and performance pieces use the pot's function as a conceptual vehicle. Perhaps a little solemn reflection kneeling before Vessel of the Female Spirit or listening by Fountain will make my viewers better stewards of their selves, the mothers in their lives, and this precious planet.