The Henry Art Gallery recently displayed colorful and intellectually challenging artwork from 12 of the UW’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) students. Some of the work was challenging, some was crazy and colorful, and some required a closer look. All of the art produced by the graduates, however, was thought-provoking.

“This exhibit really [brought] a new kind of energy to the gallery,” said Betsey Brock, director of communications and outreach at the Henry Art Gallery. “It’s [one] of our most popular.”

Students and their respective thesis committees selected which 12 pieces of each graduate’s work to display at the exhibition, which went from May 23 to June 21 in the North Galleries of the museum. The artists worked in collaboration with other artists, students and advisers throughout the creative process — a sort of collaboration that was readily reflected in the electric and eclectic body of work.

The exhibit as a whole raised many serious questions and was also at times disturbing, confusing and ambivalent all at once. The walls were lined with pictures and paintings; the floors chock–full of sculptures, large and small.

“I think [it was] one of the best in years,” Joey Veltkamp, a Seattle-based artist, recently blogged about the exhibit. “The most immediate trend is that painting is back. Of the 12 graduates, nearly half come from the painting department. Of those five graduates, [there was] a wide spectrum of scale, style and themes.”

Graduate student Bo Young Choi worked with fibers to create her piece, Second Skin – Power, a white business shirt with four sleeves. She intended, through the piece, to examine the social connections and intricacies underlying fashion and clothing choices.

“Clothes are a reflection of our existence and movement,” Choi said.

Choi, who has a background in fashion design, plans to work as an independent artist in the Seattle area now that she has graduated.

Artist George Rodriguez said he intended his artistic creation, the exhibit’s most colorful, to make people smile.

“I [used] bright surface decoration as a lure to bring the viewer closer,” said Rodriguez in his artist’s statement. He created a clay sculpture, entitled Continental Divide, of a nine-piece mariachi band holding various instruments and sporting a varied, colorful array of boots and belts.

“A smile is a smile in any language,” Rodriguez said.

With that, the MFA students finished their graduate studies at the UW, leaving viewers smiling — and thinking.

Reach reporter Brian Byrnes at arts@dailyuw.com.