The fourteen artists in the graduating class will exhibit paintings produced between spring 2022 and spring 2023. While each artist represents a distinct approach to painting, the title of the exhibition, Constellations, suggests not only the diversity of their practices, but also the collaborative nature of their artistic relationships. Working together in a shared space has resulted in often surprising visual connections and influences.

The conversation within this cohort is founded on a mutual agreement that painting is not a matter of choosing between abstraction or figuration, but of understanding that one does not exist without the other. Moreover, there is a shared understanding of painting as not only as an image but as a material object that should speak effectively in both registers.

In Constellations, the materiality of painting is explored in substances as various as oil, acrylic, fabric, plaster, paper, mud, glass, beads, as well as in digital painting. These artists’ perspectives both acknowledge and resist art-historical precedent. While their individual voices take diverse forms, each artist contributes in some way to timely conversations: the examination of identity and personal history, intercultural connectivity, the exploration of gender and sexuality, and the meaning of painting in relation to the digital age and our rapidly changing climate. The artists come from places as distant as Taizhou, China and Belovo, Siberia, and as close as Baltimore itself. None of the artists is easily defined within a specific genre or style, rather, they question lines between categories. Despite their diversity, their bond as a community is evident in the work, in their shared conversations, techniques, and content.