UM New Perspectives
December 2023 - Aug 2024
This exhibition is comprised of current students and recent graduates in the School of Visual and Media Arts at the University of Montana. It provides a snapshot of some of the issues relevant to emerging artists today, and Is a small sample of the creative energy in the school. SVMA offers programs in a wide range of media, from ceramics to filmmaking, painting to game design, animation to printmaking, sculpture to digital design.
Meet the Artists here
All pieces are available for purchase.
Click on each product to see all artwork information
$1,300.00 (To inquire about purchasing this mural, email here.)
48" x 96" x 3 mm
Original mural: print on EPO panel
Hanger-free and customizable for any hanging or framing system. Weatherized and suitable for indoor or outdoor display.
Artist Statement: My work is a black mirror of the American West. I extract elements from the known and recognizable myth of the West and create my own rendition, focusing in particular on themes of transformation and violence. “Go West Young Man, Death Waits for You in the Country” is a reflection of the conflicted relationship between ambition and violence on the Western frontier, where a naive, trigger-happy cowboy faces down the insurmountable and inescapable figure of death itself. This piece is a collage of found elements from vintage comic books, Renaissance-era woodcuts, and anonymous stock photography, which I compiled digitally and screen-printed using CMYK halftones.
$800.00 (To inquire about purchasing this mural, email here.)
48" x 47" x .5" (50 pounds)
Original mural: mixed media collage on MDO
Hanger-free and customizable for any hanging or framing system. Weatherized and suitable for indoor or outdoor display.
Artist Statement:I believe life is made up of an infinite number of intricate stories that coalesce to form our existence. Through a multilayer printmaking and collage process, I recreate a rendering, unfolding a ghostly menagerie that nudges on the imagination - a glimpse of a dream, a faraway memory, a timeless place, and an echo of sentimentality. The resulting narrative unveils a page from my own story and other stories I love.
$2,000.00 (To inquire about purchasing this mural, email here.)
48" x 47" x .5" (50 pounds)
Original Mural: carved MDO panel
Hanger-free and customizable for any hanging or framing system. Weatherized and suitable for indoor or outdoor display.
Artist Statement: Inspired by nature and storytelling A Favorable Excursion is created to take viewers to a place where imagination and reality seamlessly coexist. This mural is made using painting and carving techniques on a wooden panel. Each animal within the mural represents a unique character in the overarching story, symbolizing different facets of human emotions and experiences. As viewers engage with the mural, they are invited to immerse themselves in the intricate details and the hidden layers of the narrative.
$900.00 (To inquire about purchasing this mural, email here.)
48" x 47" x 3 mm
Original mural: photo print on EPO panel
Hanger-free and customizable for any hanging or framing system. Weatherized and suitable for indoor or outdoor display.
Artist Statement:In making my photograph titled “In Plain Sight,” I aimed to explore the visual tension between wide-open spaces and physical concealment. As a queer person raised in the rural mountain West, I, like many others, often feel the need to navigate when and where we allow parts of my identity to be visible -- which can be made even more difficult in vast open landscapes.
$2,000.00 (To inquire about purchasing this mural, email here.)
48" x 96" x .5" (50 pounds)
Original mural: acrylic on MDO panel
Artist Statement: Mickey Haldi is an artist meditating through paint.
Hanger-free and customizable for any hanging or framing system. Weatherized and suitable for indoor or outdoor display.
$2,000.00(To inquire about purchasing this mural, email here.)
48" x 96" x .5" (50 pounds)
Original mural: oil on MDO panel
Hanger-free and customizable for any hanging or framing system. Weatherized and suitable for indoor or outdoor display.
Artist Statement:My painting practice has long been rooted in a spiritual engagement with color. Initially an abstract painter, I searched for a subject matter that rooted my use of color in something tangible. I started painting portraits of trees, which expanded into other “inanimate” natural subject matter. I came to this due to an upbringing close to nature, a pessimistic view of material society, and a rejection of childhood faith that required a new foundation of value and purpose that I found in the natural world. Specifically, for me, I find meaning in the patterns and systems in the assumed “less conscious” parts of nature like plants and rocks. Examples of this include water erosion, glacial carving, coastlines, plant and fungal growth, cloud formations, geologic and volcanic events, etc. Fractal equations and the golden ratio hold some explanation to the prevalence of such patterns, and I find expanding spiritual ramifications to their ubiquitous presence. My painting practice is not an attempt to understand why these patterns exist, but to celebrate them and call attention to their intrinsic value, deep beauty, and endless mystery. Nature is not the inherent realm of human narrative: it has its own story to tell. I believe in the tactile quality of paint, and in its ability to enhance our intimate and contemplative spaces. Each of my paintings function as a simulation of complex ecosystems which serve as portals that transport the viewer deep into an experience of the natural world.
$500.00 (To inquire about purchasing this mural, email here.)
48" x 47" x 3 mm
Original Mural: photo print on EPO panel
Hanger-free and customizable for any hanging or framing system. Weatherized and suitable for indoor or outdoor display.
Artist Statement:This Wearable Warrior outfit was created in fall of 2022 in response to Roe V. Wade being overturned. The photo documentation is just as important as the original object. The photo was taken here in Missoula, showcasing the warrior standing strong on the bridge with deliberate placing of pre-existing graffiti. Dressed in all black as a symbol of strength and resilience as well as a symbol of mourning. There is a soft exterior while still acting as armor by having a steel base. A metaphor that showcases the strength of femininity and masculinity. This symbol still rings true in 2024, and more than ever we need as many warriors for resistance as possible.
$1,200.00 (To inquire about purchasing this mural, email here.)
48" x 96" x .5" (50 pounds)
Original mural: oil on MDO panel
Hanger-free and customizable for any hanging or framing system. Weatherized and suitable for indoor or outdoor display.
Artist Statement:The reference image for "Seeing the Swallows" was taken during a public gathering at an elementary school in Portland, Oregon where a migrating group of Vaux's Swifts (contrary to the title of the piece) roosts yearly. However, the audience in the painting is without subject, lending the piece a more universal flavor, inviting each viewer who encounters the piece to consider what kind of event the piece might be depicting. Additionally, while various details of dress, hair style, and seating paraphernalia locate the figures as citizens of the 21st century, the composition and subject matter should also draw connections to 19th century impressionist paintings of the then-contemporary Parisian social scene. More than anything, "Seeing the Swallows" is about the experience and long-standing history of spending time with others. But--why the title of "swallows," not "swifts"? The truth lies in human error, the artist is not a birder.
This mural is unavailable for purchase.
48" x 96" x .5" (50 pounds)
Original mural: acrylic on MDO panel and canvas
This mural is no longer available.
Artist Statement:My paintings are born in wet puddles of paint and water on my studio floor. They are built up layer after blooming layer until the canvas is dried, leaving a crisp image of a woman wreathed in the stains of my clumsy and careless body. The works are not precious to me. I have seen and experienced the cruel and inhumane treatment of the people in our world existing in direct contrast to the delicate care and exaltation of art portraying those very humans. This being most clearly represented in the portrayal of women in art contrasted against the treatment of women in reality. Hanging the painting outside and exposed to the elements was a perfect way to further wear down and damage the painting to highlight its dejected nature. This point is so perfectly driven home by the two ghastly slashes cut into the breast and womb of the painting by a mysterious vandal halfway through its exhibition. In the image I depict a woman displayed as a typical odalisque but paired her with a graphic representation of her attempt to separate from her human form and retreat from the frame. Behind the painting is a hidden world of whimsy the creature is so desperately reaching for where she can exist un-rendered and free from the male gaze. I like to think the violent cuts made to the painting bring her closer to that eventual goal.