RISD MFA Students Paint Through the Heartbreak
Each painting is like an island awash with yearning, sending out a lighthouse signal into a fractured world.
A recent exhibition, Marooned, showcased 17 artworks from the 11 artists of Rhode Island School of Design’s 2026 Master of Fine Arts in Painting program. Located in Uffner & Liu gallery, the exhibition featured a mix of styles, from airy abstractions to realistic images, with themes of yearning, desire, and seeking.
Isabel Horgan's egg-tempera painting, "Mirage," featured an enigmatic figure clad in a white gown digging amidst gas pipes in a fairytale-esque forest scene. Other notable works included Lloyd-Princeton Cangé's "Into the Hinterland," a silhouetted portrait surrounded by a cluster of patterned leaves and a scythe sculpture, representing the history of enslaved Africans, known as Maroons.
Ricky Vasan's "Teach me How to Write a Love Song" depicted a lone woman in white, reflecting in a bathroom mirror, symbolizing introspection and grief. Banshee Maria's "Bandhan (Bound)" featured bamboo stakes and red ropes extending beyond the canvas, complementing Talha Shams's "Bandhan" through the use of similar red hues.
The exhibition conveyed a sense of emotional resonance, with each painting acting as an island in a fractured world, radiating a sense of yearning and seeking.
Written by urgent.news from Hyperallergic's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
