T-Shirting with Tsutsumi MFA Fine Arts Student Heads to Skowhegan
Parsons MFA in Fine Arts graduating student Tomoe Tsutsumi will be joining a gifted and diverse group of artists at the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture’s 2010 Summer Program. Established in 1946, Skowhegan is an intensive program for emerging visual artists. Acclaimed Skowhegan alumni include Alex Katz, Robert Indiana, and Ellsworth Kelly.
Tsutsumi will be one of 65 participants selected from among 2,000 applicants to attend the summer residency program, which takes place in Skowhegan, Maine. This is the second year in a row that a student in the MFA in Fine Arts program was accepted, with alumna Kyuong Eun Kang attending in 2009.
Tsutsumi was born in Tokyo in 1982, and received her BFA from Colorado State University, where she studied painting. At Parsons, she diversified her practice and began to make video, performance, and soft sculpture. For her thesis this spring, she is creating a performance featuring her classmates, who will wear a series of embroidered T-shirts she designed to represent her personal connections with her community.
In the videotaped performance, students wear the T-shirts and stand together in a circle, literally sewing themselves to one another. Tsutsumi’s work culminates with acts of reciprocal gift giving, in which her classmates exchange the T-shirts for personal objects that represent their relationship with Tsutsumi. During her time in Maine, Tsutsumi is hoping to create another collaborative performance with Skowhegan’s students and faculty.
Tsutsumi’s performance will be on view at the annual Parsons MFA in Fine Arts Thesis exhibition, taking place at the Kitchen, 519 West 19th Street, from May 14 through May 24, with an opening reception on May 13 from 6:00-8:00 pm. For more information, please visit www.newschool.edu/parsons/thesis.