Out To Pasture: 2021 MFA Graduation Exhibition

April 02 – May 07, 2021
USF Contemporary Art Museum + Online

ONLINE EXHIBITION

Exhibition Home
//  Introductory Text  //  Virtual Tour  //  Catalogue + Brochure  //  Installation Views  //

Nostalgia & Now
//  Bonnie Mae Carrow  //  JD Hardy  //  Nadia Ivanova  //  Andrés Ramírez  //

Carnal Physicality
//  Chase Palmer  //  Jonathan Talit  //

Putting The Cartography Before The Horse
//  Luke Myers  //  Erin Oliver  //  Ian Wilson  //

That's Absurd!
//  Leonidas Dezes  //  Laura Pérez Insua  //  Lisa McCarthy  //  Maxwell Parker  //

 

CARNAL PHYSICALITY: EXPLORATIONS OF THE BODY
by SK West 

Listen on SoundCloud to an audio version of the text

The human body exists in an infinite range of dimensions and characteristics yet is comprised of the same stuff in every iteration: the recipe calls for a brain, some bones, and a lot of blood, among other things. It is one of the great wonders of humanity to start with the same internal guts but produce billions of versions of life that differ wildly from one to the next over the course of millennia while also illuminating patterns of behavior or experiences that are endlessly universal. From the depths of prehistory to present day to our impending post-apocalyptic future, emotions such as loneliness, joy, embarrassment, indifference, or yearning are inherent to humanity, just as everyone knows their own fart smells better than anyone else’s – knowledge that is collective yet unspoken. Life is, and always has been, capital-W Weird; the artist has an opportunity to exploit and explore the human body, inside and out. 

CHASE PALMER conflates the cacophony of consumption through themes of over-indulgence and brash clumsiness in his paintings. His figures are made malleable within a kind of physics unique to the composition; contorted and stretched into permanent discomfort, these elastic figures are pieces of sunburnt flesh that collide into one another or even themselves. Palmer’s compositions reference the burning backdrop of Florida, whether in terms of a roiling body of water or warped palm trees. His textured bodies perform grotesque rituals of decadence: one shovels hot dogs into two mouths on the same head while splatters of ketchup freefall onto a thick pile of the food on the beach, or a singular, detached breast floats in a chaotic jacuzzi of carnal limbs, thrashing about in all directions, as two misshapen figures, mouths agape, nearly merge. Palmer’s practice manipulates physical reality into corporeal lunacy, pairing hideous discord with striking detail that presents a world unto itself. 

JONATHAN TALIT’s sculptures explore the flesh and its natural fissures in a manner most unsettling – a comment to be taken as a compliment, of course. His vessels reference the human body in forms that appear swollen or contracted, stiff or limp, unscathed or scarred. These works and their intimate resemblance of flesh tones and shapes remind the viewer of how bizarre the body is with all its swaths and orifices, and how it functions as a barrier to the outside world but is also vulnerable to it. Skin, after all, is a membrane as much capable of containing or concealing as it is leaking or revealing. Talit’s sculptures delve into this multiplicity of our physical being with unapologetic persistence to explore ideas of ambiguity, the womb, and more.

 

---

ARTISTS + WORKS

Chase Palmer // Tampa, Florida
B.F.A. (2018) Herron School of Art and Design, Indianapolis, Indiana
Chase Palmer's work is an illogical burlesque of over-consumption represented through a disparate over-construction of activity. He uses painting, the medium that has been the traditional depicter of both the natural world and actual histories, to create a variation of discordant pictorial languages. His current body of work showcases an entanglement of many figures sharing the same claustrophobic space.
chasepalmerandstuff.com

Jonathan Talit // Lakeland, Florida
B.F.A. Sculpture (2014) Boston University, Massachusetts
Jonathan Talit is interested in flesh as a membrane; the site of negotiation between our inner and external worlds. He makes work that displays these negotiations. This can include making a sculpture that appears to swell from internal pressure, or from a surface that merges two seemingly opposed connotations (i.e. insectile and beauty queen makeup). Holes intrigue him because they expose the frightening fragility of surfaces while also offering proof of the possibility of change. His work displays the possibilities of change and ambiguity while holding the freedom and terror of them simultaneously.
jonathantalit.com

 

 

Out To Pasture: 2021 MFA Graduation Exhibition is supported in part by the USF School of Art and Art History, the Stanton Storer Embrace the Arts Foundation, MFAO, and CAM Club.