By Hyunjee Lee
On view now until May 27, the New York Academy of Art’s MFA Thesis Exhibition features artwork by 56 graduating students who explore the art of “urgent, personal necessity and unique vision” (in the words of the academy’s president, David Kratz). Their works range from sculptures and paintings to graphite sketches.
The artists come from 23 different countries, including a Harvard-educated doctor who turned to painting, and many are already established — some have contributed to group or solo exhibitions in places like the Brooklyn Museum and the National Gallery in London. Many of the pieces tell personal stories. For the painting Untitled, artist Leeanna Chipana traveled to Peru to revisit her background as the daughter of a Peruvian father and American mother. Rebecca Orcutt’s Sorry the Movie Wasn’t That Good takes a more comical first-person perspective, on a bad date: A woman holds the hand of a man whose face is hidden behind a big floral centerpiece.