McDonough Museum features art by graduating students

Artwork from graduating students in Youngstown State University’s Department of Art is featured at two exhibits opening this month at the McDonough Museum of Art on campus.

The Spring Graduating BFA Exhibit and the MFA Thesis Exhibit run April 26 through May 11, with a public opening reception 5 to 7 p.m. April 26 at the museum.

The McDonough Museum is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays at 525 Wick Ave. on the campus of YSU. Admission is free. For more information, call 330-941-1400 or visit https://ysu.edu/mcdonough-museum.

The BFA Exhibit features work by 14 students achieving completion of the Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree: Chris Andrews, Anthony Angelilli, Kasey Badgley, Mandy Bell, Rachel DiCioccio-Holmes, Jennifer Hovis, Katie Jones, Jake Kohler, Craig Miller, Cassie Roth, Lydia Tarleton, Anastasia Truby, Ashley Vaughan and Vincent Village. 

The MFA Thesis Exhibit features works by David Belgrad and Kathleen Gallagher, who are the first students graduating from the Department of Art’s new MFA Interdisciplinary Visual Arts program.

Belgrad’s work is titled “The Story of Re-creation”. He uses charcoal and eraser interchangeably to create large complex drawings that are photographed frame by frame and edited with sound. The end result is an animated, narrative video that portrays the evolution of the natural world to the current digital, mechatronic environment. Also included in the exhibition is a large, longitudinal charcoal drawing reading from left to right that follows the manipulation of a ball of clay. As the clay transforms into hands, the drawings oscillate from foreground to background, depicting the human role in the inevitable synthesis of nature and technology. 

Gallagher's work investigates the paradox of anxiety, exploring the manifestation of global and personal anxiety as seen through the process of emergence found in biological and psychological systems. The large-scale installations are based on the growth and expansion of simple components that organize into a complex extraordinary whole.