Low-Residency MFA Graduation
We are excited to host the Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts (Low-Res MFA) Commencement Ceremony on Wednesday, August 7, 2024 in the Rhoden Arts Center of PAFA’s Hamilton Building. Join us to celebrate the accomplishments of our Low-Residency MFA graduates Jason Byrd, Sophia Camacho, Margery Cercado, Julia Haines, Mark Partridge, Kate Powell, Brighton Smith, and Carla Taylor.The graduating students’ friends, families, and colleagues, as well as members of the community, are welcome to join us to celebrate this capstone moment of their professional journeys. RSVPs are not required in order to attend the event.
The Low-Res MFA Program is designed for students who desire the community, support, and rigor of a traditional MFA, but with a more flexible structure to fit their lives and schedules. Similar to our traditional MFA, the Low-Residency program focuses on independent studio work and is interdisciplinary in nature, welcoming a wide range of approaches to art-making. The Low-Residency MFA gives students the tools to engage deeply and critically with making their work while thinking about their practice in relation to contemporary and historical art and ideas.
Graduation will be available as a live broadcast on PAFA's YouTube channel.
Following Graduation, guests are welcome to join us for the Opening Reception of Above and Below: The Annual Low-Res MFA Thesis Exhibition in the Hamilton Building’s Anne Bryan Gallery, Broad Street Studio, and School of Fine Arts Gallery from 5pm - 7pm.
Commencement Speaker
Doah Lee is an interdisciplinary visual artist based in State College, Pennsylvania. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, she earned her BFA with a concentration in Painting and Printmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania.
Lee’s work employs symbolic imagery to explore themes of conflicted cultural translation, immigration, otherness, and femininity, while simultaneously investigating issues of self-identification, including race, culture, and gender. She is particularly interested in how children develop their identities, focusing on the competition between self-understanding and cultural, social, and political pressures.
Her artwork has been showcased in exhibitions in Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Seoul. She has been a resident artist at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Vermont Studio Center. Lee served as a curator and co-director of the nonprofit artist-run exhibition space FJORD gallery for seven years and was a visiting art critic for MFA students at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Doah Lee is currently an Assistant Professor at Penn State University.