March 24 – April 10
Incidental Matters: An Exhibition of Emerging Artists from the Intermedia + Digital Arts (IMDA) MFA Program at UMBC
On display at Jordan Faye Contemporary, Maryland Art Place (MAP), and Current Gallery

UMBC’s 2015 MFA candidates — Tim (Silouan) Bubb, Chanan Delivuk, Kata Frederick, Jason Hughes, Meghan Marx and Victor Torres — are featured in Incidental Matters, presented jointly at Jordan Faye Contemporary and Maryland Art Place (MAP) (both at 218 West Saratoga Street), and Current Gallery (421 North Howard Street). The exhibition is sponsored by UMBC’s Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture (CADVC), Department of Visual Arts, and the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, in partnership with the Bromo Arts and Entertainment District.

An Opening Reception will be held simultaneously at all three spaces on Thursday, March 26, from 5 to 7 pm. At MAP, Victor Torres will perform from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.; at Current Gallery, Kata Frederick will perform a drawing from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m.; and at Current Gallery Chanan Delivuk will perform an oral history beginning at 6:30 p.m.

UMBC’s INTERMEDIA + DIGITAL ARTS (IMDA) M.F.A. Program is where interdisciplinary artists seek to expand or reinvent their professional practice. The IMDA program is committed to artists that pose unique conceptual and social challenges while offering them an environment that provides courses in emerging methods, contemporary art and theory, a studio, teaching opportunities, engaged faculty, premier visiting artists and research centers that are typical of a research university. Each year these emerging artists present their culminating work in the form of installations, new media, performance, interactive sculpture and other conceptual art objects. The MFA exhibition is created with a professionally designed journal published by imda journal. The 2015 MFA thesis exhibition venues for Incidental Matters are located within a short alley walk from each other in two buildings in Baltimore’s downtown Bromo Arts & Entertainment District.

Animation artist Tim (Silouan) Bubb draws on historical, mythical, and theoretical materials to explore an animated iconography of spiritual symbiosis between humankind and technology in his work SILHOUETTE SYNAXARION. This work, on view at MAP, consists of holographic projections manifested in a free-standing, modular shadow theater.

Chanan Delivuk’s navigating family in an unfamiliar place is an installation of photographs and audio/video documentation of the artist’s journey to a remote mountain village in Croatia that shares her last name. Also included are objects from the village, including food, coffee, and homemade slivovitz. During the opening reception for the exhibition, the artist will hold a performance in the rear outdoor space of Current Gallery that will allow visitors, including the artist’s Croatian family who live in the mid-Atlantic region, to interact and converse over food and drink from Delivuki and to reflect on origins in places of the past while gathering in a contemporary location.

Kata Frederick uses dirt, charcoal, and other organic materials to create physical and contemplative durational performances. In addition to his Current Gallery exhibition of works that employ ethereal film projection and drawings, he will perform daily in the space.

Jason Hughes is an interdisciplinary artist who has focused on the history of economic power and its influence over cultural representation in the United States. His recent emphasis has crossed boundaries of textiles, collages, and sculptures cast from shredded currency; a series of large-scale prints that are ornate abstract composites of money; and sculptural objects from appropriated street barricades used for crowd control. Works from these projects will be exhibited at Jordan Faye Contemporary.

Meghan Marx explores hoarding, bioaccumulation, and the moments when pesticides and other chemicals are absorbed, inhaled, or ingested by a living organism at a rate greater than that at which these toxic substances are lost. Her work, on display at MAP, is a kinetic and interactive sculpture informed by data that the artist gathered in Baltimore and used as a basis from which to construct a breathing monument simulating “airscape.”

Using art installations, sculptures, and durational performances, Victor Torres studies the historical trajectory of sounds and their meanings as pivotal not only to understanding and tracking how human perceptions and mythologies have changed over millennia, but also how societal norms can be rewritten and who has that agency. Torres will exhibit and perform multimedia interactive masks, as well as his own verbo-written language, during his exhibition at MAP.

Venue hours may vary (click links above for full information). Admission to the exhibition is free.