The word “maximalist” was used a couple of times in this year’s @cornish_artdept BFA bios, but none embodied it as fully as @masonsmixedmedia’s “explosion” of art titled something about a horse (?) – with so much to take in, I forgot to note it down.
For reasons that will become very obvious, this work could not be contained within a single post.
Coffee shop and church pews through dirty and colored windows.
Mason Webb @masonsmixedmedia at the @cornish_artdept BFA exhibit.
I laughed when I read the artist description of these pieces, itself a work of dada:
1, 2025, Vitreograph, 7 ½½” × 9 ½½”, Want, 2025, Linoblock, 8 ½” × 11 ½”, More, 2025, Intaglio, 4″ x 6″, And, 2025, Intaglio, 5 ½” × 3 ½”, Less, 2025, Intaglio, 10″ x 14″, but, 2025, Intaglio, 9″ x 14″, l, 2025, Intaglio, 9 ½* × 12″, Am, 2025, Woodblock, 5′ × 3, Giving, 2025, Woodblock, 3′ × 2′, more, 2024, Monotype, 10 ½½” × 14″, and, 2026, pieces of metal on a string, 4.5′ x 9″, less, 2025, Oil painting on piece of wood, 6″ × 6″, as, 2025, Oil and acrylic marker on found tin, 6″ × 14″, desire, 2026 Screenprint (AP’s), And, 2026, Screenprint (AP’s), Disgust, 2026, Screenprint (AP’s), Consume, 2026, Acrylic marker and Oil on Foam, 1.5′ x 2, Me, 2025, Oil sticks and oil paint on wood, 14°x 15″, Nothing, 2025, Oil and graphite on unprimed canvas, 28* x 18″, Can, 2025, Oil, spraypaint, graphite and collaged canvas on unprimed paper, 17″ x 22″, Stop, 2026, Acrylic marker and oil on foamboard, 2’x 2, The, 2026, Woodglue, oil sticks, and graphite on woodburned scrap wood, 17″x 18″, The Birth of a Baby, 2025, Oil and acrylic on found canvas, 3.5′ × 2.5; Oh Man, 2026, Oil and acrylic on found wood, 26″ × 20″, the, 2026, Oil and graphite on found wood, 1′ x 14″, sweat, 2026, Oil and graphite on found wood, 1″ x 14″,And, 2026, Oil and acrylic marker, 3’x 5: Tears, 2025, Oil, acrylic marker, and lipstick on found wood, 15″x 25″, Wont, 2025, Acrylic marker on sketchpad backing, 1.5′ x 2′, Stop, 2025, Oil on found board, 2′ x 20″, Flowing, 2026, Bronze, 1.5″ × 3″, When, 2026, Bronze, 1.5″x 3.5*, The, 2025, Welded and brass brazed scrap steel, Wind, 2025 Welded and spraypainted scrap steel, Blows, 2026, Welded scrap steel, Nests, 2025, Rusted scrap steel and found twine, 4′ x’ 4’x 2.5, Become, 2026, Welded, brass brazed scrap steel, Planes, 2026, Hand-sewn leggings with brass brazed and welded Scrapsteel, and, 2026, Found computer, bandaging, mahogany, Fly, 2026, Found Christmas ornaments, found baby pacifiers, found lime bike pedal, with, 2026 Welded scrap steel … x
Madeline McKinney at the @cornish_artdept BFA exhibit.
I’ve been art school adjacent for a solid chunk of my formative years, either as a student in a department attached to the faculty thereof, or as the boyfriend then spouse of another navigating the institution, or friend of a friend of the arts, etc. And in that time, I’ve come to appreciate the quiet strength of those lone voices who doggedly stick to their singular vision i.e. those artists who know what they like and do what they want, regardless of trends and tendencies.
I have no idea if I’m projecting (very likely), but that’s what I see in these works. You all do your own thing; I’m out here swimming.
Kaila Macaluso @kaila_mac at the @cornish_artdept BFA exhibit.
Taking photos of photos always feels like stolen valor, but there’s nothing quite like seeing an image blown up and printed in this way. It’s like stepping into a movie. A true celebration of black and white film photography and the beauty of its grain.
This set is also a great example of the generative power of constraints. Same subject, same backdrop, minimal props (I like the bookends of black and white fabric), yet fully expressive through pose and glance and light and lens.
Matthes Boyd @running_on_fungusfuel at the @cornish_artdept BFA exhibit.
As I went through the photos I’d taken in the 9th Avenue Gallery, this piece kept taking hold of me. I only just remembered that it’s titled “Pause.”
It’s that type of artwork that, if I led the sort of life that brought with it the kind of domestic floorplan that would allow for it, I’d want on my wall.
Other artworks here stimulated my mind and my heart, but this is a piece that I feel comes closest to that “aesthetic emotion” that springs from those “combinations of forms” that objectivists insist is art at its purest.
I find the theory lacking – can form ever really be divorced from content and/or context? – but I can’t deny that the feeling itself is distinct.