A group show curated by Phil LaDeau

Derived from the commonalities between several M.F.A. candidates at the University of Texas at Austin, Something Lost exposes the trend of loss and longing that informs and drives their studio practices. Whether a conceptual, personal, or process-based investigation, the works elicit an awareness of our incompleteness and shared state of perpetual want. They suggest that states of loss or longing are worth savoring as they reveal bittersweet truths that help us better understand ourselves and the world around us.

James Scheuren photographs the impotent and pathetic byproducts of the unwatched. These manifest as variations of residue and mark-making. 

Phil LaDeau’s drawings capture melancholy as light casts through blinds and illuminates an empty corner, making an absence known and tangible.

Janaye Brown extends seemingly vapid moments to reveal undercurrents of sexual tension and longing.

Erik Swanson mars his molds with plasticine clay and powdered pigment, achieving a positive plaster form that has the pockmarks and gritty surface of an object in decay.

Christopher Culver rigorously prepares his linen surfaces then quickly applies spray paint, making coolly romantic vignettes of nightlife and lost inhibitions.

Sara Madandar deconstructs the fabric of her canvases to evoke her own cultural displacement and the corporality of her hijab, the headscarf worn by Muslim women.

Lily Brooks  captures a loss of sensation, place, and time as her subjects bend to the elements.

Adriana Corral memorializes the women victims of Juarez by layering text from related court documents, making it incomprehensible and senseless - much like the violence.

Jieun Beth Kim’s carefully rendered watercolors of natural objects capture the fragility and transience of life by presenting its opposite: death.