ASC Episode 7 — Boston Design Week edition

Art School Confidential(ASC) is a quarterly event series at MASARY Studios composed of artists showing artwork and inviting peer critique of the work with the artist present as a collective discussion. ASC is derivative of the 2006 movie and nostalgic environment of the art school experience.

Episode 7 Artists

JENNY OLIVER ( SHE / HER )

Structural Investigation of Light & Shadow (WIP)
Collaboration w/ Vivien Fergusson
Video documentation of movement score begun at Boston Center for the Arts utilizing Design Studio for Social Intervention's IAE workbook
JAN 2022 - present

Movement is one of the first forms of communication that we experience. In the womb we are moving and then somewhere along the way to adulthood we lose our intentional relationship to it. As a lifelong embodied practitioner, I understand the importance of being connected to the body as a technology for expression, processing information, spiritual alignment, scholarship and archival methods, as well as a pathway to empathize and feel compassion for others. Movement and Dance is all encompassing and as an artist, I think of my work functioning as a trojan horse for liberation with the goal of everyone getting free.

Jenny Oliver is an artist working as a teacher, performer, choreographer, and advocate for artistic integrity. She's on faculty at Tufts University, Emerson College, the Dance Complex and Deborah Mason Performing Arts Center. Through her collaborative efforts she's partnered with organizations such as MONUM, the City of Boston, the MFA, the Peabody Essex Museum and DS4SI to name a few, helping to bring transformative art and dance to the public in culturally informed ways. In 2021, she was awarded the Institute for NonProfit Practice's Changemaker's Award in recognition of her work and commitment to the community and field of dance. When not teaching or creating you can find her performing with Roots Uprising, under the Artistic Direction of Nailah Randall-Bellinger.

WEBSITE: www.ModernConnectionsCollective.com
SOCIAL: @Modern_Connections

julia helen murray ( SHE / HER )

Argon and the Vermiculite
Argon gas, glass, stainless steel, chemistry mounts, transformer, snake plant, volcanic rock, vermiculite, ‘cactus soil’, rock
2022

julia helen murray is an interdisciplinary New York-based artist drawing upon a rich personal history of struggle, loss, and a life-long commitment to breaking class and gender boundaries. Through discreet artworks, built environment, and performance, murray’s practice cracks open hidden dynamics of structure, trauma, and healing with particular focus on how these forces play out within family and labor contexts. At its most bold, murray’s work posits new and unlikely curative potentials targeted at our troubled relationship with work, with those we love, and with ourselves.

murray is currently pursuing her masters degree at RiSD as a nontraditional student after more than a decade as a union ironworker on the bridges of NYC and a life-changing experience as team leader on Carol Bove’s monolithic steel sculptures, The seánces aren’t helping, that crowned the facade of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2022. Recent exhibitions include Midnight Screening: (S/C)ensored, a solo exhibition in an active metal shop in Red Hook Brooklyn; Sculpture Biennial at Sol Koffler Gallery in Providence; and Dunnage with Carol Bove Studio.

WEBSITE: www.juliahelenmurray.com
SOCIAL: @juliahelenmurray

SAURABH MHATRE ( HE / HIM )

Kiriform: Deployable Flexures
Kiriform is a mechanism formed by transforming flat sheets into 3D shapes with a simple twist. Inspired by the art of Kirigami, it uses curved beams that buckle when rotated, creating stunning and versatile structures that can be used for furniture, lighting, architecture, deployable shelters, medical stents and more. It is an invention that combines simplicity, elegance, and functionality into one demonstrating  the beauty and potential of interdisciplinary research at the intersection of design and science.
2020 – Ongoing

I am an innovative multi-disciplinary designer and researcher with 8 years of experience in creating user-centric designs that seamlessly blend form and function. As a creative professional with a passion for design and science, my work lies at the nexus of these fields, combining aesthetics with analytical thinking to drive innovation, find opportunities and solve complex problems.

 I am currently a Senior Research Associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and have worked on projects dealing with the 3d printing of ceramic and concrete, deployable mechanisms and medical devices, programmable responsive materials, dynamic phase change metamaterials, carbon fiber composites, sustainable bio-composites and folding robots in collaboration with Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Wyss Institute of Biological Engineering, and the Autodesk Build Space. I am also very passionate about photography, digital art, motion graphics, and Extended Reality (XR).

WEBSITE: https://www.saurabhmhatre.com/
SOCIAL: @_saurabhmhatre_

SEHR YAQOOB ( She / Her ) [ProNOUNCED SAHAR]

IDENTITY
24 x 30” acrylic on canvas, gesso, sand, salt
2023

This piece is the first of a series that I hope to create, inspired by my travels. I would like to explore the concept of graffiti as a form of expression and ownership of one's identity.

SOCIAL: sehryaqoobartist

REINA MUN ( SHE / HER )

Chaotic Timer 
Plexiglass, 3D Prints, aluminium, custom electronics, neodymium magnets
2022

Reina Mun is an interdisciplinary artist-designer, maker, and researcher. She focuses on various physical mediums between architecture and objects, encompassing microarchitecture, speculative devices, and functional art. By placing queries in objecthood and fostering influential interactivity, Reina seeks to imbue her works with empathetic and intimate qualities.

WEBSITE: www.reinamun.xyz
SOCIAL: @outerprobe