ALEXIS MCGRIGG (2017 MFA in Studio Art-Painting) will have a solo exhibition of recent paintings at the Richard Beavers Gallery in Brooklyn, New York May 8th - June 5th.

Titled The Ether - Journey In Between the exhibition presents selections from her latest body of work. With these works she expands her investigations into and conversation about Blackness by visualizing souls journeying through a celestial space -- the Ether, an invisible medium that exists in space. Travel through the Ether, parallels the Black experience, mirroring the nuances of how Black people must navigate space, challenging perception and reality; and in the same vein, the Ether is transitive in how it affects everything it encounters. With figures appearing and disappearing as they sojourn, the imagery she depicts examines the fluidity of Blackness through the use of materials, application, and conceptual inquiry.

Alexis McGrigg, who currently lives and works as a multidisciplinary artist in Jackson, Mississippi, explores themes of blackness, space, spirituality, identity, and collective consciousness. Her artwork is included in several private collections and has been featured in exhibitions across the U.S. in New York, NY, New Orleans, LA, Chicago, IL, Las Vegas, NV, and Oakland, CA – most recently in the group exhibitions, SAY IT LOUD, at Christie's Auction House, Seeing 20/20 at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Wealth Surrounds Me: God, Gold & Kinfolk at Richard Beavers Gallery, and LIGHT at the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA) in South Korea.

Mary Beth Koeth Photographs Cover for Time Magazine

MARY BETH KOETH (2005 BFA Communication Design, now Graphic Design) was commissioned to photograph the cover story in Time Magazine last week. When asked how she got the gig, Mary Beth replied, "I'm often curious about how photo editors find my work. I don't really market myself, but I do personal projects often and have been able to get those published. I think Photo Editors see that work out there and take note of who is shooting what where."

Mary Beth has a long list of clients. In January, she photographed the cover of Billboard Magazine, featuring reggaetón artists, Anuel AA and Ozuna. In May of 2020, she worked on a personal project called Missed Milestones, documenting Dallas-Area high school seniors and how they were coping with a semester cut short due to COVID. The series was later published in Texas Monthly and went on to win 2nd Place in the Fine Art/Portrait category at the 2020 International Photography Awards.

Says Mary Beth about her practice, "My favorite part of the work that I do is connecting with people and guiding them through the process. It can be intimidating to sit in front of a camera. I usually walk into a shoot and leave my gear in the car or with an assistant. It's nice to have that one on one time with whoever you're photographing to ask questions, hear a little about their story, or to help them with styling, etc. I want them to feel comfortable with me before I bring in any gear."

Mary Beth spent three and a half years at Texas Tech University and a semester abroad in Florence, Italy, before receiving her BFA in Design Communication. She moved to Kansas City after graduation to work as a designer for Hallmark Cards, later moving overseas to design for Hallmark UK. These days she is mostly on the road, but calls Miami Beach home.

Catching up with YINTING FAN

YINTING FAN (2019 BFA Graphic Design) was a student at TTU when she worked up some illustrations for a book that Dr. John Beusterien, Professor of Spanish, was working on. In her junior year at School of Art, Yinting had just been awarded the prestigious Real & Muff Musgrave-Medici Circle Scholarship for her drawing talent. When Beusterien contacted School of Art looking for someone to make illustrations for his book project, she was recommended.

Beusterien provides some detail about the project. "Yinting created three images of Indian rhinos that we integrated with early modern maps and published. One shows a mother with her baby rhino in the wild in India. Archival information records that a mahout accompanied with and slept with a rhino sent from India to Spain in the sixteenth century. Yinting imagined and produced beautiful images of the two of them on a ship."