Pause

VCU MFA Candidacy Show
May 4 – 31, 2012

Richmond is home to Virginia Commonwealth University, the number-one-ranked public art university in the United States. The Visual Arts Center of Richmond’s partnership with VCU’s Department of Craft/Material Studies creates a dialogue between the teachers and students in VisArts’ studio classes and the faculty and students in VCU’s nationally recognized School of the Arts.

Each year, first-year MFA students are required to pass a candidacy review in order to proceed to their second year of study. As host to their candidacy exhibition, VisArts presented these students’ contemporary approaches to metal, wood, glass, fiber and clay—all disciplines offered in the building’s 15 studios.

This exhibition featured work by the following first-year graduate students from the Department of Craft/Material Studies at VCUarts: Sohail Abdullah, Sarah Briland, Nicole Farrand, Alexander Hayden, Bebhinn Jennings, Shauna Kirkland, Lauren Miller, Ruby Troupe, and Rena Wood. Each student worked in one of five craft disciplines—clay, fiber, glass, metal or wood. Pause denoted a point of reflection in each student’s work at the midway point in the program.