Sous Les Etoiles Gallery is delighted to present the graduating Rhode Island School of Design MFA Photography class of 2009, exhibiting work from Shirin Adhami, Michael Cevoli, Gigi Gatewood, Ania Gozdz, Marta Labad, Sunita Prasad, and Laura Skinner.

The RISD graduate program in photography was one of the first in the country and continues to be one of the most highly regarded. The program defines photography as an ever-changing set of technical, conceptual, and aesthetic conditions that have emerged from the history of the medium and that exist within broader social, cultural, and aesthetic contexts. Students who complete the MFA program are expected to have achieved a high level of mastery over their chosen tools and to be able to conceptualize and create a coherent body of visual work that represents a sustained and sophisticated investigation of their ideas.

Sous Les Etoiles Gallery is proud to host the first New York exhibition for the Rhode Island School of Design MFA Photography Program, opening June 4th, with the artists in attendance.

Shirin Adhami Fireworks
This series is about firework rituals in New England. They are a presentation of violent and ambiguous disruptions of a landscape. Fire cracks open the heavens as people watch in awe and wonder. I am attracted to the sublime nature of the beauty of light of fireworks in contrast with its safe violence.

Michael Cevoli Hard Time Killing Floor
I have been concerned with accurately depicting the visual effects of environmental problems as a result of heavy industry. Through my continual presence in these spaces, I feel that I am able to record and present the surrounding issues in a manner that speaks of universal problems not site specific to a particular location.

Gigi Gatewood  Knowing and Believing
My subjects are derived from different strategies of understanding and presented in a manner that heightens the tension between knowing and believing. Light and space are the devices I use to create a sense of wonder and mystery as they transform the banal into the extraordinary.

Ania Gozdz Tether Me
Whether traversing the landscape of memory or the fractured and suspended thought process found within grief and mourning, her work strives to highlight the journey and engage the viewer in a moment of sublime reverie.

Marta Labad  Transitory Dwellings                                                                                                           Taking the house as a frame in which the most basic impluse of attachment to place occurs, I create a fictional space that exists only for the image. Through this deliberate manipulation, it is my aim to heighten our awareness and to enter a psychological depth. As in a deja vu, entering and exiting points.

Sunita Prasad  Real Girl
In Real Girl the video performances draw on the tradition of drag performance to set in motion a cycle of production and reproduction of hyper-gendered identity, sliding back and forth from one extreme to another.

Laura Skinner Untitled
I use gesture, expression, and space to form a subtle but succint language. The dramatic use of light makes each scenario unreal, dreamlike, and makes it possible to see the photographs as representations of another state of consciousness.