Selected Works From MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Thesis Projects Curated by Gary Panter

School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents “Selected Works From

Matt Freel addresses power in terms of race. Ninety-nine years ago, the boxer Jack Johnson pummeled Tommy Burns in a title match, proclaiming Johnson the first black heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Freel’s thesis takes Johnson as a historical and metaphoric starting point in confronting the past and present implications of having a black man as a “world champion” in the highly symbolic sport of boxing. His use of the muscular male figure allows Freel to explore masculinity and its relationship to physical strength and (racial) power.

Felix Gephart’s work explores New York and its history. Focusing on urban space, the nervous and colorful drawings reflect the hustle and bustle of contemporary life. Meanwhile, his large gouache paintings capture the city at the beginning of the 20th century. Gephart intertwines anecdotes and historic facts, balancing expressive color with carefully delineated shapes.

Dunja Jankovic has created two comics as a testimony to the duality of an unstable mind of an individual. One uses a more traditional comic form and longer narration to depict an individual trying to escape from everyday routine. The other is a series of experimental comic strips, where abstract drawing and collage are combined with a literary form similar to haiku poetry, combined to create a purely emotional experience in the viewer.

Eric Losh’s The Menagerie is an educational children’s book about the legacy of a fictitious wealthy naturalist who crossed the globe collecting plants and animals for his lavish estate. He allowed his specimens to live freely in his mansion, giving them sanctuary from their diminishing natural habitats. Even after the naturalist’s death, seeds germinated and lush environments flourished within the rooms. Animals continued to flock to the menagerie, reclaiming the indoor space as their own last wilderness.

Michael Marsicano is interested in the still moments of one’s life spent horizontally in the dark. “As children it seems as if, from deep under the blankets of sleep, do demons bubble forth,” he says. As adults, such dreams are said to stem from the subjects’ deeply buried feelings of stress, inadequacy and guilt. The emotional baggage that we stifle in our everyday life manifests itself in the deep of night, “running up along the backs of our spines, rolling against the interior of our skulls and flowing down over the insides of our eyelids.”

Sophia Wiedeman’s The Deformitory is a black-and-white comic book about the otherworldly imposing itself on the mundane and the banality of the supernatural. The stories center on a dormitory where the fantastically deformed find supposed sanctuary.

Martin Wittfooth’s Babylon is a study of a modern Babel, where pursuits of progress have gone unchecked and lead to a state of confusion, disorder, and chaos. Wittfooth explores disquieting themes of unhinged evolution, the clash of old ideologies with modern fears, and the growing shadow of the human footprint on the earth. Set in atmospheric landscapes rendered in many layers on canvas, linen, or wood panels, the paintings implore the viewer to question the status quo and to proceed with caution on our present course.

Among the most influential graphic artists of his generation, Gary Panter has been called the “King of Punk Art.” The creator of several ground-breaking comic novels, Panter first made his mark in the 1980s as head set designer for the TV show Pee Wee’s Playhouse. He was later commissioned by Warner Brothers to produce a set of album sleeves for Frank Zappa and his illustrations have appeared in Time, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly and The New Yorker. Panter is the subject of a new 686-page monograph, featuring over 1000 paintings, sculptures, posters, comics and drawings, along with unpublished work from his voluminous sketchbooks (PictureBox, May 2008). A selection of Panter’s work is on view at the Clementine Gallery, 623 West 27th Street, from April 4 through May 10.

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