Renowned artist Titus Kaphar visited PAFA several times throughout the spring semester to meet with about a dozen MFA students for a series of studio critiques.

“I enjoy seeing the progression of the work,” he noted during a recent visit. “I remember the process as a student. It seems like an ominous thing; there’s all this tension and fear. My sense here is that it’s a very positive experience.”

Though critiques by design are discussions about the students’ current work, Kaphar says he also enjoyed “talking about not what’s in front of them but the path that’s laid out in their future processes.”

“It doesn’t seem to be about breaking down the artist. I was really encouraged to see that,” he said of PAFA. “It’s not that way in other places.”

Kaphar cites his 2006 stint as artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem as a valuable post-MFA transition, and urges students to seek out similar opportunities after graduation. “It was a protective space … sort of an artistic halfway house,” he says with a laugh.

Asked about advice he gives to students about their post-MFA life, he says, “You have to get your professors’ voice out of your head.”

“In some cases, it takes a year, or even more, but it’s incredibly important,” he says. “I also tell them to stay connected to a community of artists who know your work, to have at least three folks who can talk about your work.”

Kaphar’s work has been featured in exhibitions at the Studio Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Savannah College of Art and Design, among others. Perhaps his most well-known work, Yet Another Fight for Remembrance (2014), was commissioned by Time magazine in the wake of the Ferguson protests.

Kaphar splits his time between New York and New Haven, Connecticut, where he received his MFA from the Yale School of Art.

Written by JoAnn Lovigilio

June 2015

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