Press Release: Fresh Faces 2022

Fresh Faces 2022
January 19 – February 27, 2022

Featuring: Jared Abner | Patrick Brennan | Vicente Cayuela | Liam Coughlin | Olivia Leigh Curtis | Veronica Dannis-Dobroczynski | Anna Demko | Leslie Donahue | Grace Hager | James Johnson | Justin Kedl | Catherine LeComte | Eva Lewis | Hailin Li | Billy Lyons | Emily Manning-Mingle | Agustina Markez | James Morningstar | Meghan Murray | Chen Peng | Abby Preshong | Stephen Proski | Stephanie Van Riet | Malia Setalsingh | Kathryn Shiber | Jingqi Steinhiser | Scott Vander Veen

Abigail Ogilvy Gallery is proud to present our fourth annual Fresh Faces, an exhibition that introduces new artwork by the Northeast’s most talented student artists, located in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont & New York. The exhibition features 27 artists working in a variety of styles and media.

Jared Abner is a recent graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology’s furniture design program where he earned a BFA. While at RIT, Jared was introduced to the imaginative furniture and sculpture of his professor, Andy Buck. Buck’s work inspired Jared to play and explore the medium of wood and the contingencies of his tools. Jared continues this exploration in his Boston based studio.

Patrick Brennan is a Boston-based LGBTQ artist and recent graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design sculpture department. He works with a variety of concepts and media but his primary focus since September has been on found object collages using army men formed into ouroboros shapes to critique the plastics industry, military-industrial complex, and toy companies. In addition to his art practice, Patrick is also an art educator, currently employed by the education department at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, and Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Vicente Cayuela Aliaga (b. 1998) is a Chilean multimedia artist and photographer based in Waltham, MA. Born in a family of wood and textile workers, Cayuela developed an early affinity for aesthetics and manual work at his family’s carpentry workshop. Meeting at the intersection of photography, object-making, readymades, and digital media, his current series of constructed photographs explore seldom- talked issues about infancy and adolescence including loss, trauma, lack of guidance, sexual alienation, drug addiction and social isolation. In 2018, Cayuela received the full Wien International Scholarship to study Fine Arts with concentrations in Sculpture and Digital Media at Brandeis University. Since then, his sculptural and photographic work has been exhibited in multiple undergraduate exhibitions across the Boston area and received support from multiple fellowships and production grants. In 2021, his sculptural cyanotype work was exhibited in his first group museum exhibition at the Winter Solstice show at the Griffin Museum of Photography. His ongoing series “JUVENILIA” is being exhibited in March at the Griffin Museum of Photography’s Lafayette City Center Satellite Gallery as part of the Photography Atelier 35 group exhibition. Cayuela is a Studio Honors candidate at Brandeis University where is also the 2021–2022 Starr Warner Curatorial Intern at the Rose Art Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Liam Coughlin, born and raised in Townsend, MA, creates large-scale land-based site-specific artworks, sculpture, and multimedia installations using wood, stone, fire, charcoal, plaster, film, and photography that thematically engage ideas of temporality, religion, ritual, and human being’s symbiotic relationship with nature. He often incorporates open flames, burn-carving and charring as a technique to achieve an aesthetic balance between the controlled, structured form and the improvisational, free form gesture. Drawing inspiration from the early land art movements of the 20th century as well as mid-century surrealist experimental film art, Coughlin’s work incorporates a great deal of physical exertion and performance as he harvests large logs by hand and burns them over open fires before capturing these moments of transmutation through video and photography. His studio work and land art practice aim to invite the viewer to heighten their spatial awareness, contemplate their personal connection to the natural world and think critically about how that connection may serve as an intervention in or promotion of the natural spaces they experience regularly. Coughlin is based between Waltham and Townsend, MA. In 2017, he received a BA in English from Brandeis University where he is currently pursuing a post-baccalaureate in fine art.

Olivia Leigh Curtis is a sculptor who was born in the year 2000 and raised in Massachusetts. She attends MassArt where she works primarily with glass and ceramics, and enjoys experimenting with phenomena across media. She finds wonder in the world around her; an activity that drives her process-based studio practice. When Olivia is not in school she works as an apprentice at McDermott Glass Studio in Sandwich, MA. She has also interned for Toots Zynsky in Providence, RI.  She has shown work in Saugus Iron Works’ “Contemporary Cast Iron” Show and is the 2021 recipient of the Stephen D. Paine Scholarship. She will graduate from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2022.

Veronica Dannis-Dobroczynski is an artist from Detroit, Michigan pursuing her MFA at Boston University. Her work explores embodiment and identity through crops of the body, focusing on queerness, intimacy, and hyper-fixation.

Anna Demko is a 21-year-old process based sculptor, who works primarily in latex. “Because of the skin-like quality of latex, I take it and flip the perception of everyday objects by giving them human qualities. I enjoy the very long process that is drying many layers of latex over and over. My process involves casting metals, woodworking, and drawing in chalk pastels, though latex will always be my favorite material. Being able to take something that starts in a liquid form, turning it into a flat solid, then a 3- dimensional object is a process I hold very dear to my heart. I have been a sculptor for a little over 3 years and have been studying at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.”

Leslie Donahue “mines visual references from unusual places. Advertisements, screenshots from trash television, low-quality photos sent by my mother, blurry images from online marketplaces, and other fleeting snapshots of the world around me are obsessively collected and carefully analyzed for elements of truth. Appropriating these images adds to an ever-expanding narrative in which I convey the strangeness that is living in America in 2021. Emotions are indirectly expressed and dissected through color, composition, and brush strokes. A disillusioned form of social realism approaches abstract expressionism with humor and an appreciation for beauty in the unexpected.”

Grace Hager is an observational painter currently living and working in Portland, Maine. In 2015, she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting with a Minor in Art History from the Maine College of Art & Design. She has spent the past six years livingin the New Haven, Connecticut area, and recently relocated to Portland to return to MECA&D to pursue her Master of Fine Arts. As a representational painter, her interests in image making and object making intersect in what is being depicted and how.

James Ming Johnson was born in Bangkok Thailand in 1990, and raised in California. He lives and works in Waltham, MA where he is currently a post- baccalaureate student at Brandeis University. His work deals with history, memory, and American identity. He previously studied at the Art Students League of New York, and at Stanford University, where he received a B.A. in Film & Media Studies.

Justin Kedl is a sculptor, cartoonist, and designer born in Minnesota and raised in Colorado. He discovered a love of sculpture halfway through his three-year career at Gordon College and graduated with a BA in both sculpture and design. He is currently pursuing an MA in Modern and Contemporary Art History through Azusa Pacific University's online program. Most notably, Justin was one of over 30 artists to work on Natura Obscura, an immersive installation at the Museum of Outdoor Arts in Colorado, and he was a Young-Artist-in-Residence at the Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center in Skælskør, Denmark. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. He now lives with his wife in Beverly, Massachusetts.

Catherine LeComte is a Boston-based artist whose work consists of personal narratives. Her practice incorporates photography, installation, and video; utilizing various techniques to bring forth emotive reactions through her work. She uses photography as a tool to examine her familial relationships, memory, and personal experiences with trauma. A native of New Hampshire, but currently resides in Boston, MA, she has worked for more than a decade as a photographer. She holds a BFA in Photography, and is currently attaining her MFA in Photography from Massachusetts College of Art & Design.

Eva Lewis is an artist from Dayton, Ohio. She graduated with a BFA in 2017 at Wright State University. Lewis went on to do a local fellowship at the Dayton Art Institute, study through a residency with Mount Gretna School of Art and show in Dayton art exhibitions while teaching art to k-12 students. In 2020 she joined Boston University as a candidate of their MFA painting program - she is projected to graduate in 2022. Lewis currently resides in Boston Massachusetts with her cat, Titian.

Hailin Li is currently a sophomore student at the School of Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. Most of her works are oil-based or acrylic paintings and linear drawings. She explores the nontraditional approaches and use various colors as the most important medium throughout her artistic works. She also inspires from all the encounters she had in the daily life with people and objects and transform these into the visual works.

Billy Lyons’s artwork has always had the theme of his childhood, involving drug abuse and domestic violence. “Sharing my experiences of being born cocaine positive, living in poverty, and being exposed to addiction and domestic violence through my paintings helps me to connect to my audience. Painting and mixed media are my passions, focusing on creating autobiographical narratives about my upbringing. I tend to paint dark subject matter with loud playful colors, creating imagery that is almost juvenile. The idea behind painting this way helps connect my work to my memories of my adolescence while also creating an uncomfortable contrast.”

Emily Manning-Mingle is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator. She completed a five-year BFA/MFA program in Painting and Studio Teaching at Boston University between 2009-2010, and in 2020 she returned to BU to pursue her MFA in Painting. Her interests include beauty, intimacy, collecting, archiving, and mending. Her work has been exhibited in Massachusetts, New York, Texas, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Italy. She has received several awards, including the Foundation for an Open America Painting Award, Best in Show at the Mosesian Center, and a President’s Scholarship from Anderson Ranch. In the summer of 2019, she was an artist-in-resident at Gallery263 in Cambridge, MA.

Agustina Markez is an Argentinian immigrant artist, based in Providence, RI. She received a Bachelor of Science in Visual Arts at SUNY Purchase, and is currently an MFA Sculpture candidate at Rhode Island School of Design. Her works in installation, sculpture, video and performance examine the way technology, constructed environments and home can merge.

James Morningstar’s artwork examines different aspects of personal identity, perception, and acts “as a vestibule for me to better understand the world around me. I use material and technical studies, research, and making to express myself, and my questions for the world at large. Identity, transformation, and curiosity have always been a part of this practice, which was largely developed as a method of distilling and processing information, no matter how light or traumatic. My visual arts are very influenced by my queer identity, worldviews, and a yearning to supply others with the feelings they may have tucked away.”

Meghan Murray is an MFA Painting candidate at Boston University. Born and raised in Massachusetts, Murray has been passionate about art-making since childhood. After graduating cum laude from Skidmore College, she completed the year-long Emerson Umbrella residency in Concord, MA. Murray then worked as an art educator while maintaining a rigorous independent studio practice. Her most recent work is a continued investigation into intergenerational American ideals and clichés as viewed in the mid-century family photo album. Murray’s fascination with nostalgia and sentimentality continues to be integral to the work.

Chen Peng (b. 1989) is a Taiwanese artist currently based in Boston. She received her BFA in Painting from Cleveland Institute of Art in 2016 and her BA in Philosophy from National Taiwan University in 2012. Chen’s works have been shown in the US and Taiwan, including a solo show at Art Taipei, awarded by the Ministry of Culture- Taiwan. She has participated in residency programs at The Studios at MASS MoCA and Vermont Studio Center. Her paintings have been included in several public collections including Cleveland Institute of Art, MetroHealth Cleveland, University Hospitals, and Fidelity Corporate Art Collection, among others. Chen is currently an MFA candidate in Painting at Boston University.

Abby Preshong is a photographer based in Boston, Massachusetts. She is currently a senior attending Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston for her BFA in Photography. Abby found her passion through photographing music shows, musicians, and other artists. Her current work experiments with self-reflection and the desire to alter aspects of life and actuality. Focusing on anxiety, mental health and the relation it has to the self-destructive nature of human beings.

Stephen Proski (b. 1988) currently lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts. He received his BFA in Painting and Creative Writing from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2010 and is currently pursuing an MFA in Painting at Boston University. His work has been shown nationally and internationally, with exhibitions spanning Chicago, New York, and Russia. Recently, he was commissioned to create a permanent installation for the Kansas City Museum.

Stephanie Van Riet holds a BA in Studio Art and Anthropology from Connecticut College and is currently working towards a Post-Baccalaureate certificate in Fine Art from Brandeis University. Her current art practice incorporates her experience in conservation and exploration of culture, as she reacts to the world around her through her prints, paintings and paper sculpture. She has taught various art mediums at the Philly Art Center in Philadelphia, PA and at the Charles River Creative Arts Program in MA. In addition to teaching, Van Riet has worked at many art institutions including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Lyman Allyn Museum of Art in New London, CT, Zullo Gallery in Medfield, MA and The Print Center in Philadelphia, PA.

Malia Setalsingh was born and raised in Miami Florida and currently reside in Boston Massachusetts. “I started painting in 2018 at Artist For Humanity, I am currently working in my space in Mattapan. I am inspired by music and everyday living in Boston. I have previously shown work at Boston’s Epicenter and at Montserrat College of Art. My main focus is creativity and I'm driven by the opportunity to inspire others through my work. After completing my first year at Montserrat my focus has been to continue to develop my work and find opportunities that help me grow as an artist.”

Kathryn Shiber was born and raised in New Jersey. Shiber's playful and inventive drawings, paintings, photos, and textiles have been exhibited at galleries and art shows across the United States, including The Other Art Fair, Brooklyn; Art in the Time of Corona, Dab Art Gallery, Los Angeles (publication on permanent collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art); What is Real?, The Real House, Brooklyn; and the National Water Media Juried Exhibition, Dallas, TX. She received a B.A. in Studio Art from Dartmouth College, where she was the recipient of the Robert Read Prize for Outstanding Achievement in the Graphic Arts and the William C. Yakovak 1947 Scholarship for the Creative Arts.

Jingqi Steinhiser grew up as the only child in a family of diplomats: a performative image of rigid formality, a performance that mutated across geography. “Born in China, I lived in Russia, Mongolia, Korea, and ultimately, the USA. My aesthetic world was, thus, constructed on an unsettled foundation of dissonant cultures. In 2020. I received my BFA from the School of the Arts Institute Chicago and am now an MFA candidate at Rhode Island School of Design. Further, in 2020, I was awarded the residency at Ox-bow School of art with Merit Scholarship.”

Scott Vander Veen was born in Michigan and is currently pursuing his MFA at RISD. Though he is technically a student in the painting program, his practice relies on a background in sculpture, and he has dipped his toes into the pool of video art and text based art as well. He is a graduate of Bard college, where he honed his free-wheeling, interdisciplinary sensibility. After graduating, he lived for nearly three years as a Core Fellow at the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina where he continued to refine the materially oriented approach that is essential to his practice.