2025 MFA Thesis Exhibition with Kareena Solanki and Michelle Smith 
(04.01 - 05.01.2025)

Grief as Slip: (how little I show) – an exploration in clay, when words are not enough, implies that even as we acknowledge our mortality and the fleeting nature of life, we still only reveal a fraction of our true selves or our deeper realities. The ceramic artwork in this exhibition carries and conveys a journey through the present and remembered emotions of the artists’ personal narrative. By juxtaposing the tactile nature of clay with the ethereal quality of human experience, Smith contemplates the profound interplay between material transformation and emotional resilience. The exhibition’s intent is to translate the essence of complex emotional states into abstracted forms so they can be experienced and understood in new ways. These artworks serve as a foundation for fostering deeper human connections, as well as bridging the divide between what is visible and what is not (specifically internal emotional states). This exploration in clay is a glimmer of hope for those who struggle to articulate their everyday feelings or traumatic life events. You are not alone.

Sacral Glitch / Kareena Solanki

In my practice, I inquire into the recurring cycles of oppression and violence through the lens of religious systems. To investigate what lies beyond, through a speculative approach, I ask:

Where does one find the sacred?

I explore patterns of meaning-making and question how these systems formulate certain truths to unpack how the absolutism of these truths can lead to erroneous beliefs and harmful effects intertwined across socio-political contexts. I create physical manifestations of the glitch by generating religious patterns with AI and translating them onto multiple surfaces. With a post-medium approach, these images are transferred through repetitive hand-work and machine production using digital embroidery, CNC routing, printing, and slip-casting. In this process, I question what is lost in translation. As I generate images from largely biased data through artificial intelligence, I ask:

Can there be an absolute truth? When does truth become an error? A glitch?

In ‘Sacral Glitch’, the viewers performing in the space are encouraged to navigate the material tensions between artificial and authentic, immutable and hybrid, myth and fallacy, individual and collective identity, and the interconnected histories of belief systems with their senses.

The AI-generated images use the semantics of religion to represent gods, prayers, religious sites, worshippers, attires and idols. The algorithms reveal glitches and overlaps in the existing data through which I question the errors prevalent in the functioning of these systems. The humane, bodily presence portrayed through ritualistic performance with the relics and body casts, questions how sacredness transcends the boundaries of the self and its environment.

When does the sacred become profane?

I blend synthetic materials with natural ones to create visual simulacrums—representations of what is but no longer the object itself. These contradictions and paradoxes within materiality metaphorically inquire into the re-creation, repetition, and reproduction of belief systems and the material manifestations that inform them.

Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art

James Madison University

820 S. Main St. Harrisonburg, VA 22807

Hours - Academic Year Only

Tuesday-Saturday 11 am-5 pm

Phone  /  (540) 568-6918

Email  /  dukehallgallery@jmu.edu

During gallery events, parking is available at Mason Street Deck on JMU’s campus.

Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art is an active contemporary art space that elevates the historical understanding of art while fostering new experimental and theoretical directions in art. It is a space where many communities come together to focus on crafting better possible futures. Art breaks barriers, and the Duke Hall Gallery is a nexus for contemporary creativity, discussion, and change.