1156 Chapel Street
New Haven, Connecticut
United States
The Yale School of Art celebrates its graduating class of 2023 with a commencement address by renowned conceptual artist, Hank Willis Thomas.
The 2023 candidates for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts:
Graphic Design: Paul Bille, Filip Birkner, Samantha Callahan, Andrew Connors, Sarah Elawad, Osvald Landmark, M.C. Madrigal, Jisung Park, Yuseon Park, Kyle Richardson, Ainsley Romero, Lester Rosso, Junyi Shi, David Jon Walker, Yifan Wang, Cat Wentworth, Avery Youngblood.
Painting/Printmaking: Emmanuel Amoakohene, Alexandria Couch, Stephano Espinoza Galarza, Hunter Foster, Rina Goldfield, Daniela Gómez Paz, Nina Hartmann, Erick Alejandro Hernández, Jonathan Herrera Soto, Soren Hope, Christopher Paul Jordan, Fiza Khatri, Natia Lemay, Phoebe Little, Estelle Maisonett, Tura Oliveira, Maya Perry, Gabriela Rassi, Bryan Ali Sanchez, María Vargas Aguilar, Can Yağız, Ang Ziqi Zhang.
Photography: Davion Alston, Hobbes Ginsberg, Arielle Gray, Natalie Ivis, Sydney Mieko King, Xi Li, Adrian Martinez Chavez, Miraj Patel, Shaun Pierson, Sophie Schwartz.
Sculpture: Justin Allen, David Bordett, Camilla Carper, Bailey Connolly, Madison Donnelly, Dominique Duroseau, Omar Fidel Garcia, Paloma Izquierdo, Anat Keinan, Younes Kouider, SR Lejeune, Stephen Lordan.
The 2023 School of Art Commencement begins with Yale’s University-wide commencement exercises on Old Campus in New Haven on Monday, May 22. This event will be followed by the Yale School of Art Diploma Ceremony in the Sculpture Garden at the Yale University Art Gallery, and a reception for graduating students and their guests in Green Hall.
With their families and friends in attendance, graduates will hear addresses from Yale School of Art Stavros Niarchos Foundation Dean and Professor of Art Kymberly Pinder and invited commencement speaker Hank Willis Thomas.
About commencement speaker Hank Willis Thomas
Hank Willis Thomas lives and works in Brooklyn, New York as a conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad including the International Center of Photography, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Musée du quai Branly, Hong Kong Arts Centre and the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art.
His collaborative projects include Question Bridge: Black Males, In Search Of The Truth (The Truth Booth), The Writing on the Wall, and is co-founder of For Freedoms, an artist-led organization that models and increases creative civic engagement, discourse & direct action. In 2022 they were awarded the National Arts Award by Americans for the Arts.
Thomas is a recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2019), The Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), AIMIA / AGO Photography Prize (2017), Soros Equality Fellowship (2017), Aperture West Book Prize (2008), Renew Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation (2007), and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award (2006). He is also a member of the Public Design Commission for the City of New York.
In January 2023, Thomas unveiled his most recent public artwork The Embrace in Boston, Massachusetts, a memorial to both the Kings and the 69 civil rights leaders in Boston. Additional public artworks across the country include Unity in Brooklyn, New York. In 2017, Love Over Rules permanent neon was unveiled in San Francisco, California and All Power to All People in Opa Locka, Florida. Thomas holds a BFA from New York University, New York, New York (1998) and an MA/MFA from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, California (2004). He received honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore, Maryland and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portland, Maine in 2017.
