Three Master of Fine Arts students at Wichita State have placed parts of themselves in their thesis exhibitions, which are a requirement of the program they have spent the last three years part of. 

MFA students Sloane Dyer, Branden Lawless and Madison Mullen currently have their exhibits on display in both the ShiftSpace gallery and Harvester Arts gallery until April 24. 

Both gallery spaces are located inside The Lux, which is downtown. 

Finding the inspiration

These thesis exhibitions are the final presentation of the students’ education, so they can pull from several forms of inspiration for their craft. For these three, much of their inspiration came from the self, with themes of re-building, finding home and the impact of growing up on the internet. 

“The main inspiration behind this exhibit is picking up pieces of myself and putting them back together in a visible way for others,” Dyer said. Dyer’s exhibit is titled “Making, Mending, Becoming.”

Lawless titled his exhibit “Rat Bastard University, Home Sweet Home,” which he said is an homage to his hometown of Derby. 

“I spent my whole life there, and I went to K-State for my undergraduate degree and then I spent some time working in Italy for school … so I was away from my family, my support system, and the people closest to me for a while, and then I came back to Wichita State for this three year program,” he said. “I still kind of feel the distance from them, but being able to have all that support system in my family back here just made me think ‘home sweet home.’” 

Mullen, whose exhibition is titled “Attention Icon,” said she created it to be a sort of hybrid between digital and real life realities. 

“Growing up on the internet, my reality has been shaped from images and pixels since a very young age,” she said. “There’s (also) a lot of themes of domesticity, like bleaching the floors.” 

Another part of the exhibition, which Mullen titled “Explore Me,” is made up of references to different ads. 

“It talks about the algorithm, and how it kind of curates identity through the products that it forces down our throats essentially,” she said. “My demographic is a 25-year-old woman, so it gives me period products and serums and all these other things.”

The spark of passion

Dyer has been creating art since she was a little kid, she said. Her passion for teaching others helped spark her decision to follow art as an education path and eventual career path. 

“I feel like I’ve always been making art since I was younger; those were my favorite classes,” Lawless said. “As far as ceramics and the kind of work I do now, I would say about 10 years is (how long) I’ve been doing that.” 

He said that he started thinking about art as a career around his senior year of high school. 

“I was making clay sculptures in my bedroom and then taking them back to the high school and having them fired by … Natalie Brown, and she is who I give credit to, because she’s the one that informed me that I could even go to school for art and then art education on top of that,” he said. 

Mullen got a bit of a later start, as she began creating art in high school, but it led her to getting a degree in Studio Arts at McPherson College and then coming to Wichita State after a gap year. 

What’s next?

Three years of being art students and planning this final exhibition is coming to a close for these students, and they have differing plans for what will come next. 

“I have a residency in Greece this summer, and then I’ve been applying for jobs in academia, crossing my fingers that all that was meant to be (will happen),” Dyer said. “I like being an educator.” 

Lawless said he would like to spend time teaching the younger generation, but that he would love to hone his other skills. 

“That’s still my passion, to teach any artist or up-and-coming artists, but I also still want to grow my skills and passions,” he said. “I can see that branching into other avenues outside of fine art.” 

Now that Mullen is done with her thesis exhibition and is almost at the end of grad school, she said she plans to take a break. 

“I’m so excited to rest,” she said. “With my thesis, I (didn’t) have any free time. I didn’t see my friends, I was just making this … so I’m excited to spend time with family and friends and probably get a normal job.” 

The favorites

Dyer’s exhibit is made up of unprimed canvas, which she said is an uncommon medium.

“I really like the way that the paint integrates into the canvas, instead of just sitting on top of it,” she said. 

She said her favorite on display is titled “Biting the inside of my cheek until it bleeds.” 

“It’s hung at five foot six, that’s how tall I am,” she said. “So the space that it envelops on the floor is kind of (like) I was in the gallery without actually being there, so it’s kind of a place holder for myself.” 

One of Lawless’ favorite pieces he created for the exhibition is called “Leo Twins.” 

“It’s a combination of myself and an animal, and they’re fighting and covered in bruises, and so I always saw that piece as exploring my sexuality and fighting myself on that,” he said. 

Mullen said that in her art, she likes to include imagery of crows and deer, and that the crow imagery is a representation of her more masculine attributes, which led to her favorite piece on display being “Crack the Egg.” 

“I feel a lot of power and energy from this piece,” she said. “Another part of my work is analyzing on a deeper level what identity means, and what sexuality means … this crow is definitely me, just the more badass me.”