MassArt x SoWa

Part I of the 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition brings together artists who navigate the unstable terrain of the self, a tension filled landscape where identity is shaped and reshaped through memory, perception, and lived experience. Through the groups culminating research the psyche emerges as fragmented and fluid; in Olivia Greenberg’s excavation of repressed trauma; Michael d’Entremont’s looping, mediated self-images; Anastasia Sierra’s dreamlike negotiations of parenthood; Lisa Spencer’s dialogue between past and present familial roles; and Shailee Thakkar’s interrogation of language and power. Across these practices, the self is split between past and present, reality and imagination, inheritance and self-determination, enacting memory, dreams, and systems of representation acting as destabilizing forces.

Underlying these explorations is a persistent tension between control and its absence. Greenberg confronts the body as both site of violation and reclamation, while d’Entremont renders the creative process as an inescapable feedback loop of doubt and labor. Sierra and Spencer each grapple with maternal responsibility, where care is entangled with fear, guilt, and the repetition of inherited patterns. Thakkar, in turn, exposes how language itself operates as a mechanism of authority, shaping and constraining individual agency. Across these works, cycles recur constantly, suggesting conditions that both govern and entrap, even as the artists search for ways to resist or reconfigure them.

In this exhibition, the work emerges as an act of confrontation and release. For each artist, the translation of internal experience into visual, spatial, or textual form becomes a means of processing what resists articulation. Rather than resolving tension, they hold it — transforming vulnerability into a generative force. In doing so, they invite viewers into intimate encounters with fear, love, and uncertainty, where catharsis is not a conclusion, but an ongoing process.

The MassArt Graduate Programs are pleased to present the 2026 MFA THESIS EXHIBITION // PART I. Curated by MassArt Art Museum Executive Director Lisa Tung and MassArt x SoWa Director Felicia Scott Flint. Celebrate with us and the artists during First Friday reception on April 3 from 5-9pm.