MFA candidates Luke Atkinson, Stephanie Cobb, and Samantha Rosado have been featured in critically acclaimed art periodical, New American Paintings. Each issue is a highly selective juried exhibition of contemporary artists in print, chosen by renowned curators.

Stephanie Cobb’s paintings were selected for the upcoming 154th issue of New American Paintings, which will be available June 2021.

Stephanie Cobb

“I am thankful to have been selected,” Cobb said. “It is an honor to be included alongside such talented painters living and working in the South. I am particularly indebted to the mentorship that I received at LSU that aided my growth as a painter.”

“My work is a private moment made public,” Cobb said in her artist statement. “My interest in image making has always been predominately figurative, selecting subjects that are closely tied to personal experiences. Only closeness between artist and sitter will allow for intimacy in a portrait. My hope is to evoke clarity with our closeness, or our distance.”

Her MFA thesis exhibition show is titled “Fun House.”

Samantha Rosado, fellow MFA candidate of painting & drawing, had her work featured in the NAP No. 148, South Issue last year.

“La sala, no sale” by Samantha Rosado. 48×36 (hxw) in, oil paint on canvas.

Samantha Rosado in studio.

“My recent work is a narrative series of paintings in oil paint on canvas,” Rosado said. “My work can be described as pages from a journal, giving honest descriptions of family dynamics surrounding the intersections of sexuality and religion, children and parents, siblings and in-laws, and the culture of Puerto Ricans living in the mainland and on the island. In these family portraits each component carries personal meaning for me, which I attempt to convey with a sense of humor through placement and characterization.”

Her MFA thesis show is titled “¡Si tiene su 401(K), It’s OK to be Gay!”

MFA Luke Atkinson’s paintings were in NAP issue #141 in 2020.

“This current body of work is a space where the relationship between the subject matter, the method of painting, and the voice of the painting are negotiated,” he stated. “Listen to the conversation and remain attentive to different points of view. Stay alive and awake so that we may discern the true and relevant from the false and complacent. This is the stuff of life.”

See Luke Atkinson’s work.

New American Paintings has featured the work of more than three thousand painters from throughout the United States, many of whom have gone on to receive international attention. Each museum-quality issue results from a highly selective juried competition and presents the work of forty painters. Thousands of artists enter the competitions every year, but only a limited number make it through the jurying process.