Meet UConn’s MFA Studio Art Class of 2028. Working in a broad range of art making, the class features:McKayla Mae Bensheimer is a printmaker and sculptor. She received her BFA in Sculpture from Herron School of Art and Design. She has shown her work in the United States and internationally. She is drawn to the stories of humanity. Her work is about creating a pictorial story of contemporary human life through figural portraiture and sculpture. Tayebeh (Bahar) Ejtemaei is an Iranian painter whose work explores themes of memory, identity, and the passage of time through abstract and figurative visual language. Born and raised in Iran, Bahar studied painting at the University of Guilan. Her artwork, deeply rooted in both Eastern and Western experiences, evokes traces of human presence through symbolic fragments, hinting at absence, nostalgia, and resilience. Kate Greenwell is a painter, printmaker, and collage artist whose work focuses on removing language from its found landscape. She highlights the dialogue between symbols, combining text with image to point out pre-existing messages. Her recent work centers her body as a map of tattoos, creating a self-portrait in pieces. Alex Heard is on a quest to soften the harsh edges of our reality by seeking joy tirelessly from a place that does not exist. This realm of softness comes into existence through wearable objects, performance, and installation. It is populated by plush characters and objects come alive. The stories these characters tell are about failure, anxiety, and shame. Avery Nielsen-Webb is a photographer whose work often explores the tension between industrial development and the environment. An avid outdoorsman, he finds deep inspiration in the wilderness hiking, backpacking, and witnessing nature at its most beautiful. His visual style is shaped by Dutch landscape painters and the New Topographics movement of 1975, which inspires him to evolve their legacy in documenting humanity’s shifting relationship with the land.UConn’s MFA Studio Art program is a fully funded three-year graduate program which supports a broad range of art making including painting/drawing, photography/video, printmaking, and sculpture/ceramics. Its international faculty and superior, generous facilities in a rural environment are centrally located in Southern New England, great for easy day trips to New York, Boston, Providence, Hartford, and New Haven. The program culminates with a show at a Northeast gallery and a thesis exhibition in UConn’s William Benton Museum of Art.Why consider coming to UConn? Here are some of the reasons:An intensive, cross/multidisciplinary approachCreative excitement and intellectual energy of an art school and a major research university combinedA nationally and internationally renowned facultyFully funded program providing both tuition remission, stipend, and health insuranceOne of the most successful and exciting creative and intellectual communities in the countryVisiting artists, field trips, and exhibition opportunitiesThe success of our alumniAccess to all the artsLarge studios and new and improved facilitiesThe MFA in Studio Art requires the completion of the University of Connecticut Graduate School application and the submission of the creative portfolio through the UConn Graduate SlideRoom.The deadline for submitting the application is January 15, 2026.For more information, visit art.uconn.edu.