PAINTERS SHOW THESIS WORK IN STYLE WITH FLAMEPROOF

For senior fine arts painting students, the spring semester began with a fire and ended with an exhibition in a prime location in midtown Manhattan.

The new graduates lost many paintings in the Main Building fire in February. They reacted by creating new pieces in temporary studios in the ARC building and naming their final thesis show Flameproof, a testament to their resilience.

The exhibition, featuring work by 44 students, was held at 375 Park Avenue on May 9 to 14. Eugenie Tsai, from the Brooklyn Museum, curated the show, which included sculptural paintings as well as canvasses.

Student Sally Novak created an installation, a pink painting reflecting off of aluminum litho plates sewn together with a pile of pink confetti below. She’d had the confetti in her work studio and felt like it added a cheery, celebratory quality to her piece.

“This is about renewal and regeneration,” she said, speaking about her artwork with NY1 before the show’s opening night.

Another student, Maria de Los Angeles, said she’d completed 20 paintings in the last two months. She chose to show an abstract painting with rich oranges, yellows, browns, and sky blue brush strokes—“dark,” “stressful” images with uplifting color.

“I like the balance,” she said, also speaking to NY1.

Besides NY1, outlets like the New York Times, ABC 7, and Paper magazine also covered the show, which was organized by famed gallerist Larry Gagosian and underwritten by alumnus and Trustee Emeritus Bruce Newman. The space was donated by the building’s owner, Aby Rosen of real estate company RFR Holding LLC. 

Painting students say the fire and the subsequent loss bonded them together.

“As a class, we were really close before the fire. Since the fire, we’ve been just really helpful to each other,” said student Susan Luss, adding that professors consistently reached out to students and made themselves available.

And of course the students worked through their grief by delving back into their art.

“I felt the need to make work. Anytime I picked up a pencil or a pen or a brush, it felt really good,” said student Diana Ngo.

Text: Ruth Samuelson
Photos: Peter Tannenbaum