Goldfish cannot generally swim across the top of a mattress. Unless they live in artwork made by graduate student Mazdak Shadkam, which is being featured in a thesis exhibit at the Museum of Art.

Since April 11, the graduate candidates for the Master of Fine Arts have displayed their works from the last two years at the museum for the annual MFA Thesis Exhibition. This year there are seven participants.

“The museum wants to support the thesis graduates in understanding how to show their work professionally,” said Debby Stinson, marketing and PR manager for the museum.

The show covers various art forms. One sculpture is cardboard impaled with various knives. Stinson said the interactive show involves art forms such as paintings, digital media and sculptures made of clay and string.

“You have to have a bachelor in fine arts to apply to become an MFA,” she said. “This exhibition represents the last two and a half years of work.”

Stinson said the exhibition teaches the students to understand how to put up, organize and take down a gallery at the museum.

The students are required to be a part of the exhibition because it determines if they receive their MFA, said Shadkam, who specializes in photography and sculpture.

“It’s more of a process where you’re meeting with the faculty here and they’re pushing you to find out the best way to express yourself through art,” said Daniel Tate, who works with paintings.

Tate’s works are all of animals, painted in watercolor and based off of an experience at his home in Colorado.

“As artists you tap into these moments and experiences and sometimes artwork comes out of it,” he said.

Shadkam’s pieces focus on transitions. One of his pieces is a white bed with a video of two goldfish swimming across it. He said this comes from the Persian culture he was exposed to growing up.

The cultural aspect is a New Year’s Eve tradition with goldfish swimming across a table to show the transition from winter to spring.

“It’s so fun to just sit there and watch that,” Stinson said. “It’s very fun and everything’s different.”

Tate and Shadkam both said there’s not a specific message attached to their artwork. Tate said he controls certain aspects of his work and tries to generate an experience to evoke a range of emotions.

“What I love about visual arts is that I can put something out there and you might get something out of it that’s more meaningful because you generated something more from the artwork,” he said.

Shadkam said he believes the realm of arts is left to the artist’s interpretation, but in the end it’s not set in stone. Because he loves what he does he can enjoy his work. He is tired physically, not mentally.

“We’ve been making art since we started evolving,” said Tate. “If it’s that ingrained in our timeline is has to be something that’s fundamentally a part of who we are.”

The artwork will remain on display until May 10.