UAlbany Art Student Awarded $7,000 SUNY Thayer Fellowship

By Bethany Bump

ALBANY, N.Y. (April 20, 2023) — Yang Yang Rawden has experimented with making art since she was an adolescent, and approaches it much the same way she approaches life: with a deep curiosity for uncertainty, accidents and failures.

Rawden, a 28-year-old graduate student in UAlbany’s Master of Fine Arts program, has faced no shortage of all three.

She was born in China with a tumor on one eye and abandoned at birth. After being brought to a hospital and having the tumor removed, she lost partial vision and was placed in an orphanage in Shandong Province, where she remained until she was adopted by an American couple from Georgia at the age of 11.

Shortly after arriving in the United States, another tumor was discovered, this one in her brain. She underwent chemotherapy and has been in remission ever since. The practice of making art, which her mother encouraged her to do, has allowed her to explore the traumas she and her friends in the orphanage endured growing up.

“A lot of times I don’t know why I choose the material I work with,” said Rawden, who also goes by her American names, Pamela or Grace. “I just go with my instincts, make the work, and at the end, the piece speaks to me to help me find the answer as to why I may have chosen it.”

Rawden was recently awarded a $7,000 Thayer Fellowship from the State University of New York to support her as she transitions from school to pursuing a career in the arts after graduating this spring. The fellowship was awarded based on talent, achievement and potential as a professional artist.

“Grace Rawden is one of the most talented, prolific and promising artists I’ve ever worked with in the MFA program in the Department of Art and Art History,” said Daniel Goodwin, director of the Studio Art Program at UAlbany. “With ferocious intelligence and a poetic visual sensibility, she mines past childhood traumas to produce challenging and compelling sculptural installations and objects. Her ability to transform space and materials draws the viewer into a quiet, evocative world. I’m delighted that she has received this prestigious award. The recognition is very well-deserved.”

Rawden first pursued art as an undergraduate at Columbus State University in Georgia, and came to UAlbany on the recommendation of a professor there.

She is a multidisciplinary artist and works with a variety of what she describes as “mundane” objects to make her art — hair, soap, sponges and other found objects.

One piece she has been working on involves cloth diapers that have been covered in watered-down clay, folded and stacked — an idea that connects back to her experience cleaning diapers for the babies at the orphanage. It will be on display at the University Art Museum as part of her thesis exhibition and for UAlbany’s inaugural Showcase Day on April 27.

“I remember I hated doing that job and I feel like I wanted to pull that memory back by remaking these diapers,” she said. “But after I’ve brought the memory back I was like OK, I’m not sure what it wants to say. Eventually I realized that it’s not about babies or any of that, it’s about just a body being ruined, a lack of care and how a child becomes the person they are because of the way they were being cared for when they were a kid.”

Rawden hopes to return to the orphanage one day to learn more about her past. For now, she plans to use the fellowship money to buy supplies for her next projects and perhaps some studio space.

Established in memoriam of Jeanne C. Thayer, SUNY Board Trustee from 1974-1984, the Thayer Fellowship is awarded each year to outstanding students preparing for graduation from a SUNY school.

"It is inspiring to be able to witness first-hand the creativity of the next generation of artists who are honing their craft right here at SUNY. As our society becomes more technologically advanced, it is important to remember there is still a place for the arts and humanities, which can expose students to a broad array of perspectives, allowing them to become more well-rounded individuals," said SUNY Chancellor John B. King Jr. "Art is a form of expression that empowers by providing outlets for individuals to process and express their emotions; through art, we can form a deeper connection, a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us."