Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition 2006

We are pleased to present the work of Kawther Elmi, John Keefe, Steve Rolf Kroeger, G.G. Roberts, Ann Elizabeth Wolf, and Cynthia E. Zellner. Master of Fine Arts degree candidates for the spring semester 2006.  A tradition since 1983, the M.F.A. exhibition is a wonderful opportunity for the University Art Museum to partner with the Fine Arts Department.  It also represents a significant opportunity for students to exhibit work they have created during the course of their studies in a professional museum setting and to share those efforts with the academic community, alumni, and audiences of the Capital Region.  

We are very grateful to the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, and the College of Arts and Sciences for support of the exhibition and this publication, as well as to the museum staff for their hard work and dedication throughout the exhibition process.

JoAnne Carson, Chair, Art Department
Janet Riker, Director, University Art Museum

Kawther Elmi

My work deals with the imbalances of power—the human, the cultural, and the geopolitical.  I focus my passion for justice on beauty in the absence of power.  The veil in my work is a symbol of modesty, a retention of tradition, a lush landscape, an exotic headdress, and a marker of boundaries. I want to seduce the viewer while slipping in a dose of bitter political commentary.

Photographs of African Muslim immigrants to the United States romanticized in constructed landscapes and videotapes of veiled women dancing and sensual transports are an installation of my asserted stereotypes of the “native.”  This native is designed to confront perceptions of the mass immigration of North Africans into the West.

Since October 2003, I have collected hundreds of news images of grieving Palestinian and Israeli families. I document the name of the victim, along with the date and place of killing and burial.  These archives merge with footage of tar-laden raindrops to lament and bear witness.

John Keefe
As the inventor I create an alternate world.  In the studio I turn back the clocks to an industrial past and a time of boyhood curiosity.  It is within these walls that fantastic vehicles and the beginnings of biomechanical life are developed.  My inventions are embedded with the hand of the maker and the passage of time.

These objects may seem out of place in the everyday, but they have an origin.  This work is the result of combined and built experience inspired by nineteenth- and twentieth-century inventions like unicycles, gliders, flying machines, and cinematic visions of fantasy and science fiction.  I am fascinated by an industrial past that promised progress, discovery, and voyages into the unknown.

In this world, dreams of graceful mobility and transformation still live.  Flight is not hindered by weight, and the small can overcome the large.

Steve Rolf Kroeger
My art is infused with a humorous skepticism that conceals socio-political and environmental commentary.
A sense of humor is central to my work, and visual puns proliferate. For example, My Depleted Genes is composed of my degraded blue jeans.  In other works, I have altered steel so it appears to be wood; I have transformed cookies into a metropolis; and I have converted a vehicle into a toaster.  My Burnings truly are what the name implies, yet more: I have burned painted metal to construct paintings.

Brooding over America’s irresponsible consumer culture is an impetus for some of my artwork.  I fabricate nearly all of my sculptures using waste material. Global Gobbler is a realization of this thought process, transforming the discarded into the novel.

All of my works explore observations of the natural, human, and material world, often emphasizing the similarities between the incongruous.

G.G. Roberts
My painted world is a gift I give myself. Using images of children, toys, or environments collected from a series of advertising books and magazines, I invent fantasies of youthful experiences. Just as children play and use their imaginations to ward off anxiety about the unknown, I use fantasy as a method by which I recharge my thoughts towards others. I like inventing secrets shared between friends, and my painting is a visual narrative of my own intimate design.

Ann Elizabeth Wolf
I am the thief who has stolen a fairy’s scarf found shimmering at a clearing in the forest, forgotten by the fairy queen after a night of revelry. I snatched it from the grass and suddenly the secret world amongst the thickets was revealed. And that was when I was seven, but I still go back. I paint this alternate reality, and in doing so offer the magic of the scarf to the viewer.

Cynthia E. Zellner
The experience of my work involves a story that slowly but elaborately unfolds as you move through each installation. The viewer is invited inside my art.  There is an intimacy that requires introspection and the attention of your senses, not only through visual imagery but also through text, sound, texture.

When I first began crocheting with wire, I was drawn to the physicality of the material—the play of light on the metal. The openness of the stitch gave the form an ephemeral quality—a line drawing suspended in space. I came to realize that through this time-consuming process I was able to experience a meditative atmosphere that allowed time for contemplative thought. These sculptures reflect my struggle with questions of the human condition and the passage of time. 

My art is also inspired by my own journal entries and a universal need to relate to others. The image of a line of coquetted wire began to resemble, to me, a line of handwritten script, and became a natural transition from my written words. Presenting words as tactile objects, I am acknowledging the power of language. I explore the provocative perspective of memory and the significance of recording our own personal histories.

My work is my celebration of the majestic quality of calm and the quest for a sanctuary of true intimacy.