Three female artists from the graduating MFA 2021 class will meet with Maria Emilia Fernandez, Jeannie McKetta, and Chuqi Min, three writers from the UT Art History program to do a walkthrough of their show small refusals, and discuss the absurdity of being a body, embracing elements of risk and chance in art practice, and the pleasure of recognizing in nature all that is other than us.
small refusals: 2021 Studio Art MFA Thesis Exhibition is on view May 1 – 23, 2021.
Bios
Heather Canterbury (b. 1985, El Dorado, Arkansas) received her BA in Art from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where she was awarded the Chancellor’s Leadership Scholarship. As a Studio Art MFA candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, she received the Doolin Scholarship for Studio Art, Russell Lee Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Photography, and the William and Bettye Nowlin Endowed Presidential Fellowship in Photography. Her work has been shown throughout the state of Arkansas and more recently in New York and Austin.
Magdalena Jarkowiec (b. 1979, Leszno, Poland) received her BA in General Studies from the New College of Florida. She is an Austin-based artist working in sculpture and dance performance. She trained in ballet and modern dance from a young age and as an undergraduate started making sculpture by sewing and stuffing fabric. The genesis of the practice was a love of sewing inherited from her Polish grandmother, a tailor. As a dancer she has had the pleasure of performing professionally in the work of internationally recognized choreographers, most notably Netta Yerushalmy and Alonzo King. She has shared her choreographic and sculpture work extensively in Austin at Fusebox Festival, Dimension Gallery, EAST, and the Salvage Vanguard Theater.
Ania Mininkova (b. 1989, Odessa, Ukraine) is a Ukrainian-born corporate software cog turned transmedia artist. She is a Provost Fellow and a Graduate School Fellow at UT Austin. At the core of her practice is the tension between the unknowable and the human need for fixed structures and definitions. She thinks about our relationship with the natural world and technology as the embodiment of this tension. Anna has led performative walks and exhibited her work in the U.S., UK, and Australia.
