Fantastic FIT Art & Design Faculty Exhibition

Fantastic FIT Art and Design Faculty Exhibition

Each year, the FIT Faculty Art Exhibition showcases select works that faculty artists from the School of Art and Design have created around a theme, and each year, we stand back, amazed at their ability to inspire discovery and wonder.

This year’s exhibition explores the many meanings of the fantastic in art. The word “fantastic” is from the Greek fantastikos, which means “existing only in imagination.” That same word provides the label for art that looks beneath the surface to reveal the extraordinary, the strange or the mysterious. The 43 artworks on display—paintings, drawings, mixed media, photography, animation, and sculpture—are not easy to pin down, but they fit together in context. Whether it is the beehive sculpture under a specimen jar, the portrait of a painted lady in Rite Aid, the surreal Giardini di Boboli, or the dark, whimsical animated short Mister Smoothy—the artworks each possess the power to stir and unlock the imagination.

I want to congratulate our faculty participants for sharing their fantastic work, along with Professor Jeffrey Way of the Fine Arts Department for proposing the exhibition’s theme, and the faculty exhibition committee members for serving as its jury. Thanks, too, to Thomas Irizarry, the exhibit’s coordinator, and the museum staff who helped make this exhibition a success.

The Museum at FIT produces major award-winning exhibits that attract more than 100,000 visitors each year. And as Fantastic clearly demonstrates, it also plays a vital role in shaping the unique experience of an FIT education.

Dr. Joyce F. Brown, President
Fashion Institute of Technology