The School of Art at Northern Arizona University is pleased to present its annual Spring BFA Exhibition. This longstanding tradition results from four years of intensive artistic and critical development of our BFA candidates.
Art and culture have always been important, and now even more important. At the School of Art at NAU, we believe in the power of art to inspire, make connections, accelerate change, and portray the times we live. It should be the job of art education to tease out the therapeutic and positive aspects of culture so that we can emerge from a period of study as slightly less disturbed, less selfish, less un-empathetic, and blinkered human beings. We can be of greater benefit not only to the economy and environment but also to our friends, sisters and brothers, our children, and our spouses and partners. What art education is for is simple \u2013 it should help us to live.
Today the School’s mission remains the same \u2013 to contribute to a better world through creative education; so relevant in today’s uncertain times when we are more distant from each other. This exhibition exemplifies these thoughts and values.
The School of Art NAU is nationally recognized for excellence in studio arts, interior design, and art education. Our studio-based approach to research and teaching brings disciplines together to explore problems in new ways to find new innovative solutions. The studio creates the environment for peer learning, critical inquiry, inter-disciplinarity, experimentation, and prototyping, helping to address many of the grand challenges confronting society and the creative industries.
Cautiously and optimistically looking forward to the next stage of their creative lives, our students are engaging with their artwork in a hybrid space as they end their academic careers here at NAU. The graduating BFA students are installing and working together to exhibit their work inside the Beasley Gallery as well as having the work exist online. Both are hopeful signs of returning to a new, better, normal in the future. As they transition into this new space of recent graduates, let us celebrate their success and see what the future of art looks like here at NAU in 2021.
We see the end of the tunnel called the Covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, our NAU School of Art graduating students couldn’t get out of the tunnel before graduating. However, the wide-open field is waiting for them long after completing their BFA degree. Of course, life after graduation will not always be bright. But we have seen our alumni are equipped with the adaptability and resilience required to meet the challenges.
As challenging as 2020\/21 has been, it has been the year of people – the struggle to save lives, respect diversity, grow inclusion, shield democracy, and strive to bring back some sense of normality as we knew it. We wish our graduating students great success.
\u2014Vaughan\u00a0Judge, Director, NAU School of Art
\n\u2014Jaewook Lee, Assistant Professor, NAU School of Art
\n\u2014Christopher Taylor, Beasley Gallery Coordinator, NAU School of Art<\/p>\n\n