Nadine Beauharnois, Morgan Hobbs and Tony Martolock graduated from PAFA's Master of Fine Arts program in 2015. As recipients of the 2016 Faculty Exhibition Award, they were invited to return to PAFA one year after graduation for a museum exhibition of their recent work.

​

Persistent memories give way to awkward tension, and acutely observed realities – and deceptions – pay homage to a lineage of eclectic, eccentric object-making. Beauharnois, Hobbs and Martolock navigate an institutional history while inquisitively reaching into the future. Showcasing their painted anxieties, this exhibition also enables each artist to extend the conversation by placing their work alongside selections from PAFA’s collection.

​

Morgan Hobbs was born in was born in Kansas City, Missouri. She earned her MFA in 2015 from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and her BFA with a minor in anthropology in 2010 from the University of Central Missouri. Her education has informed an interest in connecting social science concepts to her work in the studio, and she outlined the three types of visual memory and their relationship to painting in her master’s thesis. In her paintings, she focuses psychology and narrative. She says, “My paintings are an attempt to represent psychologically tense moments in everyday life.” Hobbs has received the Linda Lee Alter Award, attended a residency at Vermont Studio Center, presented at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research at Weber State University and exhibited her work both regionally and nationally. She is a co-founding member of an artist gallery, AUTOMAT Collective and lives and works in Philadelphia.