2013 Dedalus Foundation MFA Fellowship Recipients
Each year the Dedalus Foundation awards two $20,000 fellowships to students in painting or sculpture entering their final year in a Master of Fine Arts program. This year the jury, comprised of artists Amy Sillman, Tom Thayer, Stanley Whitney, and Ester Partegàs found three students to be equally meritorious of the award. The 2013 M.F.A. Fellowship recipients are Irvin Morazan, Danielle Orchard, and Katherine Sinnott.
Danielle Orchard, currently a student at Hunter College, was raised in a small home in Indiana with five siblings. She attributes her upbringing for her interests in familial relationships in confined spaces, and the ability of the human body to be at once vulnerable and yet also a powerful representation of emotion. One can see these influences in works such as A Mother (2011). Even as the child appears to resist his mother, the viewer is reminded of the traditional composition of Madonna and Child, suggesting the oppositional complexities of human relationships. Other art historical references appear constantly throughout Orchard’s work. In Slumber Party Scene (After Les Demoiselles d’Avignon) (2011). Orchard plays with Picasso’s famous work by representing the women from the original painting, who were depicted in a brothel, instead in an exclusively female environment, a slumber party.
Born in El Salvador, Irvin Morazan immigrated to New Jersey when he was nine. Now enrolled at Hunter College, Morazan continues to contemplate his indigenous heritage while also considering his contemporary role as an immigrant in an urban environment. His recent work involves elaborate sculptures that he then wears in performances, photographs, and videos. Works such as GhettoBlaster Headdress (2011) weave together urban influences with ethnic references by having things like an 80s boom box juxtaposed with a gilt coyote. Other performances and pieces react more explicitly to racial tensions. The Cheesedoodle Headdress Sculpture (2011) performance involved Morazan attempting to hail a cab wearing a large silver mask with antennae-like protrusions filled with cheese doodles while carrying a bulky plastic bag of cheese doodles. The absurdity of his ensemble exaggerates and calls attention to the frustration many minorities encounter trying to hail a taxi in New York City.
Katherine Sinnott, of the University of California, Los Angeles works with the structural idiosyncrasies of her studio as though it were a canvas. Adding and removing layers of paint and drywall, inserting and truncating walls, and incorporating the sculptural qualities of light, she explores the malleability of her studio over time. The work 4 corners (2012) developed in her studio over the course of several months. One can see some of the ways her studio space evolves over a period of time with areas drawn and redrawn, and walls carved into in some areas, while in other places the drywall has been built up with layers of more material. Sinnott’s studio series balances easily between painting, sculpture, and drawing.
For more information regarding our M.F.A. Fellowship, please visit our website.
