Too Far Gone: 2005 CMU MFA Exhibit

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Susanne Slavick, head of the School of Art, said, Too Far Gone alludes to the eminent departure of this engaging and provocative group of emerging artists, but it also suggests and celebrates their creative intensity and abandon. These graduates live up to the school's #2 national ranking of MFA programs in multimedia, using a variety of tools to respond to both timeless and contemporary conditions.

Featured in the exhibition were Jacob Ciocci, Adam Davies, Carolyn Lambert, Mario Marzan and Blithe Riley.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jacob Ciocci (Paper Rad) premiered Inspiration Superhighway, a five-channel video installation that tells the story of a boy trapped inside a confusing labrynth of myths.

Adam Davies showed paintings representing, "the fragility of our control over the power we use". His interest is driven by the one of the strongest underpinnings of modernism: that technological advancements would promote a better society. "What interests me is this part of the myth," he writes, "the need we have to dream and hope for a better future."

Carolyn Lambert's installation at the Miller launched Ohio River LifeBoat Project, a proposed four month, one thousand mile trip down the Ohio River to record river-related stories. The artist writes, "I am interested in the reciprocal ways that people and places shape each other."

Mario Marzan exhibited "sequences of drawings that fabricate a world where memories are topographically stored and distorted to their limits of collapse. This manipulation enables me to create a visual fiction, calling into question experiences of displacement, and the dilemma of cultural dualism - from uprooted islander, to citizen of the U.S. mainland."

Blithe Riley's project looked at "how narrative code resonates in the building of communal and individual knowledge and identity." She is interested in how events turn into stories, get mythologized, and become history.