Far From Home: Low-Residency MFA Exhibition

The second annual thesis exhibition for PAFA's new Low-Residency MFA program. Art by PAFA's graduating MFA students, working in painting, sculpture, and installation, will be included in the show. The pieces selected represent the culmination of 2 1/2 years of graduate study by the artists presenting their work. 

Exhibiting artists: Elizabeth Cody, Jessica Padilla,  Diane Richards, Megan Segre, Hong-Bich Huynh Vernon, Mark White

Elizabeth Cody is a painter and installation artist whose work continually explores color. She wrote her thesis on Objects-- and has since studied (carefully) her relationship to the things that attract her, and why.

Jessica Padilla is a multi-media artist who dives into the realm of the narrative and the conversations that emerge from intimate encounters and experiences.

Diane Richards is a multimedia artist who works in textiles, photography, and sculpture. She abstractly creates images of nature that bring a sense of tranquility and impermanence to our ever-changing world. The simplicity of the shapes and materials used are minimalistic in nature and create a balanced complexity and calming effect. The work is created with the same gentleness of spirit and kindness that nature has given to humankind.

Megan Segre's artwork reflects her commitment to social practice. In her explorations of homelessness, for example, she works from a deeply personal and public perspective to create visual experiences that evoke empathy and compassion. In all of her work, her use of diverse and dissimilar materials is a way to investigate connection and meaning. Always a technical challenge, it is both vital to her creative process and integral to her visual language.

Arriving in the United States as a refugee at the age of 14, Vietnamese-born artist Hong-Bich Huynh Vernon works in a variety of media including acrylic, oil, woodcut, mixed media and found objects. In her emotional and provocative works, she investigates the psychological and physical concepts of uprootedness, displacement and the exile’s search for home.

For more than fifty years, Mark White has been making art using all three colors: alizarin crimson, Naples yellow, and Payne’s gray. His recent work uses found materials to create possibly unanticipated results, often in an installation space. Mark currently lives in North Carolina with his wife, Jaye, and their three dogs. Although it’s difficult to tell by looking at his work, he takes himself way too seriously.