Contributing Artists

Alix Kaplan (Tufts University Student) - @junqued

Anya Raikhovski (Tufts University Student) - @anyaraikhovski

April Gao (Tufts University Student) - @aprilhgao

Beca Piascik (Tufts University Alumni) - @becaarts98

Chelsea Coon (Tufts University Alumni) - @all_anything

Artist Statement: “Chelsea Coon is a performance artist and writer. Her performances utilise endurance to reconsider limits of the body through its various orientations to space and time. She has exhibited internationally in festivals, biennales, and galleries in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. She received her BFA and MFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University (2012, 2014), and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Theatre, Performance and Contemporary Live Arts at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Scuola Teatro Dimitri, Switzerland (2015). Recent writings will be included in Rated RX: Sheree Rose with and after Bob Flanagan (Ohio State University Press, 2020); and the phenomenology of bloody performance art! (Routledge, under contract). Coon is a PhD candidate in practice-led research at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne.”

Claire Valentine (Tufts University Student) - @clairevalentineart

Artist Statement: “Claire Valentine is an emerging artist working in Boston and Maine. She currently studies at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston, where she is pursuing a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts. Her work largely explores feminine spirituality and what qualifies as a holy body by placing trademarks of Catholicism in conversation with symbology adopted from alternative spiritualities. She also has a distinct interest of the languages of flowers and plants, particularly as they relate to divinity and medicine. Her images synthesize these components into meditations on love, female friendship, religion, and spiritual empowerment.”

Derin Savasan (Tufts University Student) - @derinsavasan

Artist Statement: “Saint-Exupery once said, ‘perfection is achieved when there is nothing left to take away.’ If I had to pick one strength among my artistic abilities, it would be my ability to "visually simplify." I value simplification for its sheer ability to generate impact in today's age of dwindling attention spans. I always try to make the simplest, cleanest iteration of whatever I am working on, and I am curious about how the simplification process takes place, both technically and theoretically.

My creative process is greatly influenced by people like George Lois, Saul Bass, Christoph Niemann, and Noma Bar, who make our lives easier by being smart and concise. I start with "clusters" of visual content, and just like them, I try to weed out the unnecessary bits, until I finally have a coherent, striking image, words, or a mix of both for maximum effect.

Simplification is never easy and needs constant practice. It also requires a long time of studying and browsing my subject to be better able to sort the signals from the noise. As I took IB Visual Arts classes in my senior year of high school, I began making self-initiated efforts to reduce shapes, political figures, and everyday objects into their essential, most basic forms. This process had a fractal depth. Each exercise taught me new things, and I grew more curious about how other forms might be simplified.”

Emma Mandziuk (Tufts University Alumni) - @artk.iing

Gabriel Richardson (Tufts University Alumni) - @Gabriel_c_richardson

Artist Statement: “My work is currently focused on investigating intersections of traditional craft and technology. I am interested in the evolving face of labor and what "work" means as we go deeper into the 21st century. My imagery is intentionally ambiguous, both micro and macro as well as digital and handmade. I aim to ask as many or more questions than I answer through this work and am interested in starting a dialogue with the viewer.”

George Moraites (Tufts University Student)

Artist Statement: “Before my junior year of high school, I hadn’t taken an art class or made a piece of art since the 6th grade. I chose to take painting simply to fulfill my graduation requirement. When I started that class, painting was really hard for me, but my teacher Mrs.Snyder, encouraged me constantly and made me feel like I really could be a decent painter. This painting was my final project for the class, and even years later I’m still proud of it. I even wrote about my joy for this particular painting when I applied to Tufts! Painting, pottery making, and drawing continue to be really powerful ways I can unwind.”

George Eng (Tufts University Student) - @george.geng

Giada James (Tufts University Student)

Hannah Yin (Tufts University Student)

Harrison Ringel (Tufts University Student) - @harrison.ringel

Holden Dahlerbruch (Tufts University Student) - @chefholdencooks

Isaac Gewirth (Tufts University Student) - @isaac.in.grey

Jamie Brewton (Tufts University Student) - @thisisjammmy

Jason Rathman (Tufts University Alumni)

John McKean (Tufts University Student)

Keely O’Connor (Tufts University Student) - @Keely.oconnor.official.artwork

Laura Harvey (Tufts University Student) - @laura_suzanna

Laurie Beth Mangili-Gaines (Tufts University Alumni) - @cowlsbylaurie

Artist Statement: “SMFA Diploma graduate, BS Art Ed Tufts, 5th Year Traveling Scholar I am currently working for the Cambridge Public Library as a STEAM Hive assistant in the new makerspace.”

Lily Volper (Tufts University Student)

Marisa McCarthy (Tufts University Student) - @mmccarthy_art

Maxine Bell (Tufts University Student) - @maxinearts

Michelle Jerry (Tufts University Student)

MJ Benson (Tufts University Alumni) - @mjbensonartist

Artist’s Statement: “As a painter, I begin with the horizon, its ever steady line of delineation between the spaces of land, sky, sea. In between are layers and layers of light and color, sprung from my memory but unbound by realism. I use a framework, a few rules around composition or color, but it’s the tension between what I expect and what the painting is telling me that dictates the flow and finish. I work, and wait, until the profound shifting between place and memory stills itself harmoniously on the canvas.

I am a prolific painter, deeply enmeshed in all the intellectual, mundane and playful elements of exploring my vision. The ocean, in league with the sky, has always fascinated me with its ability to soothe and terrify, its very solid, moving mass so easily shifted by the solid earth below it and the orbiting moon above. It’s always been home to me.”

Naali Ali (Tufts University Student) - @rivah_photography

Nick Batzell (Tufts University Student) - @homlesbrantwood

Ralph Robinson (Tufts University Student) - @ralphrobinsonphoto

Rei Xiao (Tufts University Student) - @reixiao_

Saira Mukherjee (Tufts University Student) - @sai.chedelic

Artist Statement: “Pipe fixtures are frequent subjects of my work because they can concretely represent systems. They are abundant with parts, all integral to the inner and outer workings of the system. I find them to be aesthetically appealing in all their grunge, cross-sections and detail, and they are thematically intriguing because of how easily I can regard them as simultaneously human and inhuman. In this piece, I use them to liken humans with machine parts, all complicity working in systems while we aren't cognizant of their full impact or their intricacies. We allow them to blind us, to distort the way we see the world. The human in this piece is neither alive nor dead, the pipe system has taken everything from them. I would like to think that the human will find a way to wake up, to realize that the system was never working for them in the first place.”

Valerie Cervantes (Tufts University Student) - @cervantes_studio

Wade Perry (Tufts University Student)- @colegepleazelooky

Williamina Heifner (Tufts University Student) - @williaminaheifner