Tideland features the work of  Olivia Baldwin, Elizabeth Ellenwood, Shadia Heenan Nilforoush, and Chad Uehlein, graduating Studio Art Master of Fine Arts students at the University of Connecticut.

A bit of blue.

A shard of canvas.

A fragment of debris.

A glimpse of luck.

All collected, all revered, materials shift between the four of us, yet lived impressions remain a constant. Shadia Heenan Nilforoush roots her practice in performance and video, mapping family archives, personal histories and polarized identities. Olivia Baldwin traverses sculpture and painting, casting color across walls, floors, and ceilings. Elizabeth Ellenwood walks the beach, catalogues collected detritus and photographically urges marine conservation. Chad Uehlein’s cheeky installations and ad-hoc inventions become sites for performances that suspend time and vanquish efficiency on his quest for hope. 

We have found leeway with one another, drifting apart and coming back together. As the current rushes by, Tideland is our raft and our shore. Download the Tideland catalog.

Watch Studio Art Artist Talks

As artists, we face the daunting task of creation. It is a task made up of successes and failures. A seemingly endless journey of failure, repetitions, and frustration, and then a revelation is followed by elation. Afterwards the artist begins again, building upon what they have learned spiraling full circle, seeing with new eyes. As artists we embrace the mistake, the flaw, which opens the window to new paths. The time spent in graduate school encourages the artist to embrace their journey and nurture questions. When artists find their passion, and pursue it relentlessly, delving deeply into an unknown, the creative spirit is challenged and invigorated.  With this exhibition, we see the culmination of an exhaustive dedication to the studio by these young artists. We see their explorations and visual inquiries, and from them we learn more about our world. Congratulations to the MFA Studio Art class of 2020.

Judith Thorpe
Professor of Art, MFA Program Director

 

I offer my congratulations to the University of Connecticut Department of Art & Art History Master of Fine Arts Class of 2020. Olivia Baldwin, Elizabeth Ellenwood, Shadia Heenan Nilforoush and Chad Uehlein have mastered the challenges of an intensive multidisciplinary visual arts graduate program. With Tideland they share the culmination of three years’ creative investigation and collaboration. I offer, too, my sincere appreciation for the artists they have become since our first seminar together, for all they have embraced and nourished, and carry with them into the future.

Monica Bock
Professor of Art, MFA Project Seminar