MFA Midway (Exhibition Review)

The opening reception for the Masters Fine Arts Midway exhibition on November 12th was a packed house. Student Galleries South is the home of the Midway exhibitions held every semester and this has been my favorite so far.

Konah Zebert's "Kiowa Pond" was my favorite of the three. His photographs were astounding in their quality and overall composition. The way Zebert captured the reflections in the pond made me turn my head a few times thinking they were hung upside down; they were that clear. The framing and manner in which they were displayed were perfectly concise; the photographs spoke on their own with no fancy frills or layout. My favorite part was that the prints looked almost like paintings or three-dimensional. They were hypnotic and begged to be touched to confirm suspicions but the details were so well defined that they just had an illusionary effect.

In talking with Zebert, I found out that this was a place not far away from Reno where people would abandon their cars. Zebert chose this spot because of the stories behind the dumped cars. He wanted to know more about who did this and why. There were many cars in the pond but Konah brought out the beauty in their unappreciated existence. Nothing was tampered with and the shots are raw and real.

Quynh Tran's  "Recurring Dreams" was my second favorite of the evening. Taking up the entire back room, Tran's handmade paper adorned every square millimeter of wall space and a hanging sculpture hung in the middle. Tran made all the paper herself and cut each piece individually. There were a multitude of colors and they were each applied to the wall in random orders. It looked like one big wallpaper but there were a few pieces that revealed that each color was displayed independently.

The amount of work that went into the design, papermaking, and display must amount to days and it surely paid off. Tran made sure that there were no cracks anywhere and that no two colors were side by side. The sculpture of paper in the middle that hung down reminded me of the roots of the dragons used in Chinese festivals where people would be inside; the sculpture hung and twisted in a similar fashion. It's a shame that it was tucked away in the back room but is understandable. I want it in my house on my walls. It made me feel happy.


Tom Drakulich's "Tomorrow, Then" sculptures were my least favorite. They were black ceramic shapes like a vase but were distorted and twisted about. There were at least six of them that stood around at the entrance on white pedestals and I could tell that many people had to consciously avoid bumping into them.

I vaguely remember the possibility of them representing death in various stages but I feel that the sculptures were too abstract to convey any resemblance of death besides them being black. Having seen other works by Drakulich, I feel that "Tomorrow, Then" isn't as strong as his others.