SAIC Alumni Are Breaking out in Newcity
This spring, Newcity released its list of "Breakout Artists 2018" for the fourteenth year running. The list of “budding" image makers includes several SAIC alumni who were profiled by Newcity as artists “making insightful, mesmerizing and beautiful work.”
Darryl Terrell (MFA 2017), whose focus is in portrait photography, is praised by Newcity for exploring the possibilities in which to "counter the white, heteronormative gaze with a rare lyricism" in his work. Melissa Leandro's (BFA 2012, MFA 2017) prolific works from her "stunning, sunny" solo show Trop-i-cal at Efrain Lopez Gallery are also featured in the article. Performance artist Marcela Torres (MFA 2017), is commended for her navigation of diverse topics such as race, class, intersectionality, queerness and sexuality through her "formal approach to fighting, bodybuilding, play and conflict." Ruby Thorkelson (MFA 2016) aka Ruby T, who works in many media but would like to call herself a drawer, was profiled for making "brilliant kind of honest-funny...often-enigmatic works" which plot against the American political and corporate elite. Newcity also gave praise to Sherwin Ovid (BFA 2007), whose "mixed-media paintings draw on a rich vernacular of material opacity..." and focus on the process of migration and cultural transmission.
Read the entire list of profiles here.