▲g·gre·gate

Dates: March 2 through March 31, 2023

Opening Reception: Thursday, March 2, 6-9PM

Gallery Hours: Wednesday through Friday, 12-5PM

The James Pearson Duffy Department of Art, Art History, and Design is pleased to present ▲g·gre·gate at the Art Department Gallery, March 2 through March 31, 2023.  An opening reception will be held on Thursday, March 2, 6-9PM.  This exhibition features artworks by graduating WSU MFA students who practice in a variety of disciplines and approaches.  Exhibiting artists include Aaron Deshields, Ephemera Fae, and Sarah Heuninck.

Each artist explores art-making processes that echo the fragile human experience with emphasis on decomposition and rejuvination.  Their raw, broken, quiet, and varying approaches dissect materials that are influenced by specific social systems.  From Sarah’s paintings to Aaron’s structures, and the flawed compositions held within Ephemera's installation works, the artists collaborate to provide a conceptual landscape to navigate, reflect, and understand the density within the natural and industrial worlds. 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Aaron Deshields

Aaron Deshields is a sculptor and metalworker based out of Detroit, MI. He received a BFA in Sculpture from Appalachian State University where he explored forging, fabrication, and casting of metals. He is an MFA candidate at Wayne State University in the Metalsmithing department. He is co-owner of Standard Fabrication & Forge and has worked as an educator for College for Creative Studies, Touchstone Center for Craft, and Wayne State University. Aaron’s work explores the architectural and infrastructural aesthetics of consumption.

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Ephemera Fae

Ephemera Lynn Cadieux-Fae is a social practice interdisciplinary artist with a love of teaching, community, and mental health. Fae was born in Garden City, MI, and resides in Detroit.  Currently, they are an MFA candidate at Wayne State University (WSU) expected to graduate in the spring of 2023. 

In 2019, Fae was commissioned to lead a large-scale mural project, A City Celebration at Woodward Warren Park, Detroit. They were also a co-leader for two large scale mural projects at WSU, Interactive Hands (to be installed) and The Real: Detroit outside Scott Hall. Their work has been shown locally and throughout Michigan, including the following: Irwin House Gallery, the Michigan Senate Building, Black Box Gallery, and in 2020 they were part of the first nine artists involved in When There Were Nine.

In 2021, Fae was one of three art administrators to assist with the interdisciplinary program, “Using Visual Thinking Strategies to Enhance Observational Skills Through Art and Imaging” funded by the Association of American Medical College (AAMC) Grant and under the guidance of Grace Serra (Art Collection Curator, WSU Art Collection).  The program taught WSU medical students how to use visual thinking strategies to interpret works of art.  The skill helped develop an awareness of varied viewpoints within medical imagery, related to the health of their patients. 

Fae can be found writing poetry, setting up surveys, and making videos in the loft apartment they share with their wife Olivia-Grace in Banglatown, Detroit, MI. Together they wrangle their dogs Foxy and Bliss while saving house plants from Mercury Murder Mittens Omega, the resident house predator (cat).

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Sarah Heuninck

Sarah Heuninck is a contemporary painter currently working in Detroit, Michigan.  She received her BFA from the University of Lethbridge, Alberta in 2013, and is currently an MFA candidate at Wayne State University with an expected graduation date in 2023.  Through experimental painting and material investigation, her work explores themes of temporality, transformation, and humanity’s relationship to nature.  Her current body of work uses fragments of materials including brick, asphalt, and glass sourced from local shorelines in Detroit.  Recent exhibitions of her work include the Art in the Legislature exhibit at the Anderson House Office Building in Lansing, Michigan and the Annual Scholarship Exhibition at the Detroit Artists Market.  

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The James Pearson Duffy Department of Art, Art History, and Design is a division of Wayne State’s College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts, educating the next generation of visual artists, designers and art historians. Wayne State Un­iversity, located in the heart of Detroit’s midtown cultural center, is a premier urban research university offering more than 350 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to more than 28,000 students.