About MAP ›

Rites of Passage

The Young Blood exhibit at Maryland Art Place features local MFA graduates.

By Cara Ober | August 3, 2010

Baptisms, bar mitzvahs, sweet sixteens, and wedding ceremonies are all met with great joy in our culture, as well as fear and trembling. These rites of passage are designed for initiates to be “reborn” into a new role, to face the challenges of formal acceptance into a more mature group or society.

Artists who attend Master of Fine Art (MFA) programs have a similar initiation when they showcase their labors in a thesis exhibition before they are turned loose into the world as professional artists. But then what? After completing the degree, there is no single, obvious path to success.

Maryland Art Place (MAP), Baltimore's largest nonprofit gallery, provides a crucial next step with its annual Young Blood show, an exhibition of work by recent graduates of the four local MFA programs: Maryland Institute College of Art, Towson University, and the University of Maryland in both College Park and Baltimore County. “Young Blood is a great way for these artists to meet and have their work be seen in a formal gallery setting alongside their peers,” says MAP director Cathy Byrd. “This exhibition is a professional debut for more than a few of the 2010 participants.”

“The period just after my MFA thesis show could easily have felt crushingly anti-climactic,” says participating artist Sarah Laing, who studied drawing and painting at College Park. “Young Blood has provided the transitional step between a long three years in graduate school, with deadlines and the expectations of the faculty there, and being thrown into a self-motivated career as an artist.”

The exhibit features projects in installation, sculpture, video, painting, drawing, and performance. Artists are chosen based on recommendations from MAP's Program Advisory Committee. (Disclosure: The author is on the MAP board of directors and the advisory committee.) This year the show has expanded to include two performance artists, who will present their projects live on the evening of August 26.

“Many times performances, especially in Baltimore, are only shown in performance spaces or venues, which keeps it more underground,” says UMBC sculpture/performance grad Natalia Panfile, whose performance involves 400 pounds of buckwheat. “But this exhibition includes everything.”

The professional exposure aside, many of the participating artists view the exhibit as an opportunity to further their education and deepen their commitment to their careers. Maggie Gourlay, who studied sculpture and installation at Towson, explains, “Each time you do an exhibit, you gain more appreciation for the role of the curator—the choice of work; mounting, displaying, lighting, and publicizing the exhibit; and dealing with the artists—experience which helps so much going into the next exhibit.”

This year’s exhibiting artists are John Farrell, Maggie Gourlay, Tim Horjus, Benjamin Kelley, Jeffrey Kent, Sarah Laing, and Ailsa Staub, with performance art projects by Christine Ferrera and Natalia Panfile.

The exhibition will include two public receptions. The first, on Thursday, August 5, from 5 to 7 p.m., is part of MAP's Art Beats Rush Hour: Cocktails for Creative Professionals series and includes food from Two Boots Pizza. The second event is Thursday, August 26, from 6 to 8 p.m., and includes talks and performances by the Young Blood artists.