Six upcoming MFA graduates of Rhode Island School of Design’s [RISD] Textile Department, who will receive their degrees on May 31, along with six entering their second year in the fall, will present their individual selections of work at a public event at New York Design Center on June 5 from 5:30PM – 8:00PM. NYDC is located at 200 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY, and the young designers will be on site to discuss their work.
The one-day showcase highlights work that began last fall guided by Sherri Donghia within her project entitled “New Materials.” The work ranges from apparel to interior fabrics – some hand produced, some designed as prototypes for industrial production – and reflects the intentions of the textile program to challenge students to understand the contexts of their work in relation to the professional environment, society in general, and the larger world of art and design.
“In this changing world, our graduates are expected to act as problem solvers who are responsive to the needs of both the local and global society; in addition to being technically and aesthetically savvy, they need to be innovative thinkers,” said Maria Tulokas, professor and Coordinator of Graduate Studies at RISD’s Textile Department.
Three of the six MFA-candidates, who will receive their degrees at the end of May, work from the context of interiors. Hyun Kyung Lee has chosen Rem Koolhaas’s Seattle Public Library as the framework for her work. Fascinated by Koolhaas’s key concept of “stable and unstable,” she has managed to find her own fresh approach, which she expresses in jacquard woven furnishing fabrics and space dividers. Sonya Marshall’s work has been inspired by the Highline, the abandoned elevated rail line in New York, an area that is now being turned into a public park and where nature had reclaimed a narrow ribbon through the city. In her interior fabrics she creates substance and surfaces that refer to the juxtaposed manmade materials and organic growth of the area, retaining in her work the wild and unexpected character of the space before its reincarnation as a public park. Natalie Wright interprets her own experience of 1980s popular culture, identity, and personal space in her wallpapers that use imagery from her teenage years. Using this as a springboard, she has produced a new series of contemporary hand screen-printed wallpapers. Using veiling, reflective, and kinetic materials Michael Radyk works with light in his woven pieces, distorting the viewer’s perception and creating interaction between the viewer and the piece.
Two of six graduating students work in apparel. With her roots in Japanese culture, Ritsuko Hirai creates fabrics for apparel that, through their organic material and simple structures, integrate a quality that speaks of both an ancient craft and a modern sensibility. She refers to fabric being “like water that has the power to transform, wrap, hide, be light like air, and be heavy and hard like ice.” A master of knitted techniques, Nanhee Kim displays structural, sculptural, and architectural qualities in her knitted garments, aiming to produce an effect of bold architectural forms.
The work will be on view at the Rhode Island Convention Center in RISD’s Annual Graduate Thesis Exhibition from May 21 – June 1, 2008. The exhibition, located in Hall A of the Convention Center in downtown Providence, is free and open to the public daily from 12-5 pm (12-8 pm on May 31), with an opening reception on May 20 from 6-8 pm.
For more information or to view the work online, visit http://www.risd.edu/graduate
Contact:
Jaime Marland
401.427.6954
[email protected]
http://our.risd.edu
Image above:
Nanhee Kim
Layered Fluidity
2008
Knitted dress, silk
For more information go to: http://www.risd.edu/graduate
