What we carry with us

UB’s annual first-year MFA showcase offered a glimpse into the minds of nine talented artists who worked tirelessly on their pieces. 

Pieces varied in: watercolor, acrylic, photography, and video. The gallery truly had no bounds, with almost every artist displaying multiple pieces.

While all these pieces were in different forms of expression and had different qualities, they were all deeply personal to each artist. The work brought their lives to the audience, leaving viewers both satisfied and full of imperative thought. 

Twinkle Banerjee’s “I was always me” was a deeply personal slideshow that reflected her return to India and explored her life with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of colonialism. Each photo in the piece is both striking and poignant, speaking to themes of femininity, healing and trauma. 

Banerjee’s piece serves not as a source of comfort, but rather, forces the viewer to consider trauma and how it is perceived.

“Healing is a lengthy process but making this art helped me place some of my difficult memories and triggers outside of my body.” Banerjee said. “I was thinking how I wouldn’t want to have prints of these works in my studio, because they are disturbing to me and may retraumatize me. But overall, it helped me make sense of the pain. By visualizing it, I was able to not gaslight myself into believing that I was overthinking it and it was all in my head.”

Robert Burleson had three different pieces featured in the showcase. Simply glancing at his two pieces, “Olentangy” and “Pinfish in a Bucket,” there is a clear affinity for expressing himself through fish, which represents a return to his origins and childhood.

Burleson would do a catch-and-release at his neighborhood’s pond and with his grandfather, go deep sea fishing. Fish is a symbol he returns to often “without much of a conscious effort,” he says.

“Fish are a symbol of life. They come in diverse, colorful forms. They populate the sea, the domain of the unknown; ancient Egypt associated them with fertility; Jesus multiplied them for the people,” Burleson said. 

Despite the associations, Burleson approached his pieces more “mechanically” through painting. In an arrangement of a flat, “sort of still-life,” he displayed the native fauna of the Olentangy river, which runs through his hometown Columbus. 

“It's both an ecological reference and homage to the city,” Burleson said.

Nicholas Christakis' three images offer a spontaneous and beautiful look at three separate moments. “Cameron and Sophie and Silas’ CRT TV,” “Fawns in Forest Lawn” and “The Outer Harbor Wind Turbines on My Sony Cybershot’s Screen, or Trevor Found a Beaver Skull,” all evoke themes of wonderment, loss of time and nostalgia. The photos featured in the showcase  were captured during moments of exploration without any planning, further emphasizing the theme of wonderment he focuses on.

“I see the images I make as an extension of myself, a way to express how I feel or what I need to feel at any given time. Oftentimes that is subconscious and I realize way later while looking back.” Nicholas continued, “Photography is entirely intertwined with my current psyche, place in life, people in my life and memory that way.”

The arts desk can be reached at arts@ubspectrum.com.