Exhibited annually at the Rochester Art Center, this is a series of juried solo exhibitions featuring each year a different selected artist from the MFA Program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
About MCAD MFA
MCAD’s Master of Fine Arts in Visual Studies program is a community of makers, thinkers, researchers, and creative professionals working in a mentor-based, interdisciplinary environment. Our four-semester curriculum is designed to expand your thinking as you take advantage of the Twin Cities’ vibrant art and design scene. Students are invited to be strongly self-directed as they set personalized goals to guide each semester, as well as their overall time in the program.
2025
Nostalgic Escapism
Solo exhibition by MacKenzie “MAC” Mitzuk / Jurors: Kali Morrison, LaVanda Mireles, Zoe Cinel
The Rochester Art Center presents a solo exhibition of paintings and sculptures by artist MacKenzie “MAC” Mitzuk. Mitzuk’s exhibition proposal was selected through a juried process among a pool of applicants. This exhibition is sponsored by the MFA Program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design as a part of an annual partnership, started in 2021.
MacKenzie “MAC” Mitzuk is an interdisciplinary artist who uses imagination as a form of nostalgic escapism from contemporary digital reality. Her practice includes painting, sculpture, illustration and installation. After graduating with a Bachelors of Science in Art Education from St. Cloud State University in 2019, and a Masters of Fine Art from Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2023, MAC is now a dedicated K-12 Art Educator working at Northwest Metro (ISD 12 School District).
MAC grew up in the early 2000s, a time marked by deep cultural changes in the US education system. As a young student, she fully experienced the shift towards digitally-centered ways and tools for learning that are now commonly used in classrooms. As a child, she also noticed how digital technology was being incorporated into the everyday lives of friends and neighbors. Always a curious observer, she realized that the everyday experience with the increasingly wide-spread presence of digital technology within her own household was instead unique and unconventional. The artist refers to her childhood home as “a physical escape from an increasingly digital, modern reality”. Raised by a Baby Boomer father and Gen Xer mother who kept the household like a time capsule, she was exposed exclusively to media and aesthetics from the early 60s to the late 90s.
Growing up surrounded by old TV shows and movies, vintage furniture, clothing, and outdated technology, highly impacted MAC’S artistic practice. The artworks presented in this exhibition mirror her nonconformist upbringing, channeling a sense of nostalgia and escapism. In paintings like To The Treehouse! and in the series Tech Trash, little colorful creatures inhabit a fantastic world made of VHS cassettes, CRT monitors and walkman cassette players. In Don’t miss your bus, and thank your bus driver and the series In It's the 90s and you are in the Twin Cities, in the middle of a snow storm, waiting for the bus, the artist revisits her childhood narratives, through the lens of nostalgia. In the artists’ words, her practice “I am constantly chasing that playful innocence that’s associated with being a kid, processing life. I grew up too fast from the world of make believe, and I am desperately trying to relearn how to play.”
Documentation by Kali Morrison
2024
To-Do-List
Solo exhibition by May Link Kopecky / Jurors: LaVanda Mireles, Heather Hanft, Zoe Cinel
Artist May Ling Kopecky was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) when she was fifteen. Due to the “invisible” nature of MS, she was often met with skepticism while talking about her illness. In response, she started creating artworks that visualizes how it can feel to navigate the world with MS. As Kopecky writes in her statement: “My recurring MS symptoms include debilitating fatigue, cognitive difficulties, and vision/mobility issues. Some days I check everything off of my to-do list; other days I must prioritize the absolute necessities. I often feel guilty about my low levels of productivity on bad days, and many other people with chronic illnesses have voiced similar experiences.”
The exhibition features 100 original drawings and an interactive installation that encourages visitors to participate, learn and connect with these underrepresented topics. In To-Do List Kopecky portrays the erratic nature of illness and disability bringing attention to the difficulties of preserving energy while chronically ill. How challenging is it to manage a list of seemingly simple tasks when living with a chronic illness? In the artist’s words: “We are often frustrated with how draining “simple” tasks can be, and how little others understand. My hope is to spread awareness about the chronically ill experience, while also helping others with chronic illnesses feel seen, heard, and understood.”
About the Artist
May Ling Kopecky is an artist based in Plymouth, MN. She received her BFA from the University of Minnesota and her MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). Her work has received multiple awards in exhibitions across the US. Kopecky was a grant recipient of the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council’s Next Step Fund in 2019. In 2022, Kopecky was awarded Second Place for the Kennedy Center VSA Emerging Young Artist Competition, a Jean Kennedy Smith Arts and Disability Program of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. She has been featured in publications such as New American Paintings, the National MS Society’s Momentum magazine, Fox 9 news, and the Star Tribune. Kopecky has been an art instructor for both adults and children, and currently works in the Learning Center and Accessibility Services department at MCAD. Through her work, she strives to spread disability awareness and advocate for people with invisible illnesses.
Documentation by Kali Morrison
2023
Like a Little Tlaquepaque Vase
or Como Jarrito de Tlaquepaque
Solo exhibition by Ivonne Yáñez / Jurors: Christopher Delisle, Kaitlyn Walsh, Zoe Cinel
Like a little Tlaquepaque vase or Como Jarrito de Tlaquepaque is a solo exhibition of soft sculpture and mixed media installation by Mexican artist Ivonne Yáñez. The title alludes to the popular expression “Es tan frágil como un jarrito de Tlaquepaque” which in Spanish refers to an overly sensitive or emotionally weak person. Yáñez takes this reference and applies it to the fragility of the clay used to create vases. While clay is fragile, Yáñez’s sculptures are soft and made out of pink quilted fabric: the material transforms this object into a body that will never break. On the external surface of the vases the artists added images of Tarot cards mixed with traditional Mexican lottery games. As the artist states: “I am interested in finding similarities between traditional games for children and the traditional tarot deck, as they both are used as vehicles for divination. Working with soft fabrics translates the permanence of the material as a metaphor for the permanence of the future or destiny: for example “La muerte” (The Death) is a card that represents new beginnings or the end of a journey”.
About the Artist
Ivonne Yáñez is an interdisciplinary artist and fashion designer from México City. In 2023 she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts Program from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She holds bachelor degree in fashion design from both the Universidad del Valle de México, México City, and from the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, in Milan. While presently, she is focusing on creating immersive installations, her background is in fashion media and retail design in México City. Her work has been exhibited at Fresh Eye Gallery, Gallery 148, and Gamut Gallery, all in Minneapolis, MN. She has worked with Minneapolis Textile Center as the Program Coordinator of the Continuum Exhibition and at Fresh Eye Gallery as a Teaching Artist.
Documentation by Kali Morrison
2022
Có nắng vàng trên bàn tay nhỏ
(All the light in your hand)
Solo exhibition by Genie Tran / Juror: Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara
Có nắng vàng trên bàn tay nhỏ (All the light in your hand) focuses on the chaos and tenderness of memory and identity. Influenced by the artist’s family albums and branded advertisement archives, the exhibition features large sheets of handmade paper filled with collages of personal and found images, objects and texts. The collages represent a generative cycle of remembering and moreover, a record of time expressing a living desire for love and connection.
As stated by the artist: “Through making, I recycle old photos and written archives in order to make new blank sheets of paper, which the visitors of the space are welcome to take. These smaller sheets are letters made to be carried and transformed into new memory. Touching them, all the love is in your hand.” This is Tran’s first solo exhibition in South East Minnesota.
About the Artist
Born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Genie Hien Tran, or Trần Phan Minh Hiền, is a visual artist and writer based in Minneapolis, MN. Her work takes the form of installation, collage and poetry and explores the concepts of home, belonging and immigrant identity. Tran received her BFA in Illustration at University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire in 2018 and her MFA in Visual Studies at Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2022.
Documentation by Kali Morrison
2021
Ghost of the negative
Solo exhibition by Jocelyn Figueroa / Juror: Alex Buffalohead
GHOSTS OF THE NEGATIVE is an intimate examination of a complicated family archive: a collection of photos taken by my great-grandfather, Satoru. He was a photographer for the Japanese army during the invasion of China in World War II. His purpose in the occupation was to document the impressive might of Japan’s military for the homeland: the creation of propaganda. Instead, Japan’s subsequent loss to the United States cast a shadow of shame and disgrace over the images.
Upon his death, my great-grandfather’s archive of over 400 wartime photos was banished as a scattered heap in a forgotten dresser within a shadowed storeroom. This is where they remained for two generations.
The paintings found here bring these photographs to the light. Images from the archive are carefully painted with white primer onto a synthetic white parachute cloth. The primer appears matte, catching the light in a manner different to the cloth. Therefore, the images become visible only through a trickery of light. The white paint on the white surface obscures the subjects contained within, indicating that this is a history too shameful to speak of above a whisper.
About the Artist
Born in Kyoto, Japan, Jocelyn Suzuka is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on fibers, painting, and sculpture. She received a BFA from Moore College of Art and Design in 2015 and is a current MFA candidate at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Her work centers on the transfer of memory through tactile objects, inherited legacies within family archives, and the generational cycle of historical trauma.
2020
Electric Arc
Solo exhibition by Emma Beatrez / Juror: Sophia Chai
(body vibration, memory friction, information fog, shifting sound, overtone, fluid image, sculptural transparencies, imposition, grid, meditation, resonance, emptiness, fluidity, space, transference, system, funnel, presence, frequency, light, sound, material).
About the Artist
Emma Beatrez is a transdisciplinary artist from Minnesota. They graduated from Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2020 with a MFA in Interdisciplinary studio art. Beatrez received their BFA with an emphasis in oil painting at North Dakota State University in 2018. Their recent work deals with ritual, body, proxemics, desire, and simulation through material, light, sound, and scent explorations.
