Throughout the semester, we’re shining a light on the Art Department’s graduating MFA candidates as they present their final thesis exhibitions. These exhibitions are the culmination of years of dedicated study and artistic exploration, showcasing our students’ diverse talents and innovative approaches to art-making.
Kalil Mitchell creates luminous, abstract paintings that explore the interplay among light, space, and perception. She explains her work “hovers between revelation and concealment, using shifting layers of light and touch to evoke states of impermanence, transcendence, and ambiguity. Through circular motifs like suns, moons, and dots, the paintings reflect on natural cycles and the tension between presence and disappearance, creating thresholds of uncertainty and becoming.”
Mitchell’s MFA thesis exhibition, “Bright Obscurities,” will be on view at UW–Madison’s Art Lofts Gallery (111 N. Frances St.) from March 24–28. An opening reception, which is free and open to the public, will take place on Wednesday, March 25, from 5 to 8 p.m.
We asked Mitchell to share more about her work: