2027 Master of Fine Arts Exhibition

About the Exhibition

The 2027 Master of Fine Arts Exhibition is the culmination of a three-year program in which artists explore their creative practice with the support of their faculty committee.  

The MFA candidate at Michigan State University is characterized by a desire to push beyond the boundaries of existing art and design paradigms, whether focused within or across disciplines. Each person is encouraged to explore the parameters of their creative journey considering material investigation and conceptual questions. Each artist’s process of discovery is unique based on their own integrative media-focused or multidisciplinary inquiry. Under the guidance of a faculty committee selected by the candidate, they develop a rigorous studio practice that is informed by their curiosity of the world around them. While developing their thesis exhibitions, the MFA candidates work with their committees to refine their artistic goals and develop a deeper understanding of what it means to be a contemporary practicing artist. The MSU Department of Art, Art History, and Design celebrates the creative research of Jacob Ashba, Colin Day, Shelby Freehling, Mahbube Parnian, and Jaelene Tatum as evidence of their achievement and continuing artistic, scholarly, and professional promise.    

This year, the annual Master of Fine Arts Prize will be awarded by Robin K. Williams, Ph.D. Williams is curator of modern and contemporary art at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), with curatorial and scholarly interests in visual, performance, sound, and socially engaged artistic practices. At UMMA, she leads initiatives such as the UMMA-Labadie artist research residency program, supporting projects grounded in activism and archival inquiry. Previously, as curator at The Contemporary Austin, she curated exhibitions including This Land (2023), Tarek Atoui: The Whisperers (2022), and Daniel Johnston: I Live My Broken Dreams (2021), and commissions with artists including Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley, Vivian Caccuri, Celeste, Raven Chacon, Jenny Holzer, Katarina Janečková Walshe, and Clare Rojas. She was Ford Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, curating Danielle Dean: True Red Ruin (2018) and co-curating Sonic Rebellion: Music as Resistance (2017), and Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow in Latin American Art at the Blanton Museum of Art. Her scholarship on Joan Jonas appears in the international journals Stedelijk Studies and Sin Objeto. Williams holds a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Texas, has taught at UT-Austin and Texas State University, and has served on public art committees at both institutions. 

The 2027 Master of Fine Arts Exhibition is organized by the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in partnership with the MSU Department of Art, Art History, and Design and curated by Rachel Winter, Ph.D., assistant curator. Support for this exhibition is provided by the Graduate School at MSU and the John and Susan Berding Family Endowment.

MFA Logo design by Wyatt Stonhouse