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# UConn’s First Three-Year MFA Art Class Graduated in May, and Here’s What They are Doing Now
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/uconn-mfa-art-class-2018/
- Published: 2018-09-10T18:19:28.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:39:17.000Z
- Description: UConn’s MFA Studio Art Program is no longer the “best kept secret” in the country.
- Author: University of Connecticut (UConn)
- Tags: Announcement, Art Education, Art Education Announcements, Connecticut, UConn, University of Connecticut, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-18 14:37 (2018)

![UConn_Grads_MFA](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2018/09/nectar_grads1.jpg)

UConn School of Fine Arts, MFA in Studo Art, Class of 2018.

Meet the newest alums of [UConn’s graduate studio art program](http://bit.ly/2PK4mtn?ref=hyperallergic.com), whose cross-disciplinary practices include painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video, printmaking, installation, and performance.

[**Kelsey Miller**](http://bit.ly/2CokvTo?ref=hyperallergic.com) has been in several exhibitions, including *Layers Beneath the Moment*, Southern Graphics Council International; Monotype Guild of New England Fifth National Monotype/Monoprint Juried Exhibition; and *Re: Acclimating*, Kirkland Arts Center Gallery, WA. Kelsey is traveling to Cortona, Italy to teach in the University of Georgia study abroad program in January.

[**Jelena Prljevic**](http://bit.ly/2MT8oTr?ref=hyperallergic.com) is the co-founder of HEKLER, an interdisciplinary collaborative platform in NYC that fosters collective critical examination of hospitality and conflict. Her animation *Sisterhood* is part of a group show entitled *artists and allies* at Signs and Symbols, in NYC’s LES. Her exhibitions and film festivals include *The Red Chair*, Dixon Place, NYC; *SEE a Paris 2018*; *ProFiFest*, 7th International Movie Festival, Serbia; and *Athens AnimFest*, Greece.

[**Kaleigh Rusgrove**](http://bit.ly/2Q5ZKip?ref=hyperallergic.com) is the recipient of a Fulbright U.S. Student Program grant to study in Austalia as well as a recipient of a Critical Mass Photolucida MFA Student Scholarship. Her work recently has been exhibited in *The Surreal Show* at Specto Art Space in Harrisonburg, Virginia and *Close Third Person* at the LMAK Gallery in NYC.

[**Erin K. Smith**](http://bit.ly/2wPAIfj?ref=hyperallergic.com) has been in several exhibitions, including *Dream Logic* at the Branford House in Groton, CT; *Just Under 100: New Print*; International Print Center, New York; and the solo exhibition *Rue for Me* at the Contemporary Art Galleries, Storrs, CT. Erin is teaching Drawing at UConn this year.

[**Claire Stankus**](http://bit.ly/2CqgEVT?ref=hyperallergic.com) has been included in *95th Annual All Media*, Ann Arbor Art Center; *In the AiR*, Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, Woodstock, NY ; *30 Under 30,* Viridian Artists, New York; *JuxtaPositions*, The Painting Center, NYC; and *Emerging Artists Exhibition*, Kathryn Schultz Gallery, Cambridge, MA. Claire is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at Roanoke College, Sale, VA.