Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect the correct pronouns of one or more artists.
UCI Claire Trevor School of the Arts held After Many Sunsets, its winter 2023 Second Year M.F.A. Exhibition, from Feb. 19 to Mar. 11. The exhibition was held in the University Art Gallery and Room Gallery, and showcased the work of nine M.F.A. students.
One of the featured artists, Khadijah Silva, was interested in creating her pieces using photography and portraiture to explore and convey black identity and history.
“I primarily work right now with photography and painting. So this particular show I was interested in combining the two practices, and then I’m really interested in portraiture, so I kind of wanted to investigate or have a conversation around displacement and stolen histories of blackness, particularly in America and the United States,” Silva said.
For Silva, a big part of creating artwork centered around themes of identity involves the use of space and limitation.
“I challenged myself to really think about what [it means]to take an image of a black person, specifically a woman of color… and I used tar, as a metaphor, to speak about a psychological space but also a physical space of limitation. The piece is titled ‘I let it in and it took everything,’” Silva said.
Along with the concept of limitations in art, Silva also conveys the feeling of being held back through her use of tar.
The piece consists of five large portraits of an African American woman being covered in tar in different stages. The texture of the tar plays a role in shaping the paintings, as it physically adds a layer of substance and depth. In some of the portraits, the woman is more obscured by the tar than in others, with one portrait seeming to be almost completely tar. When first looking at the piece, the viewer gets a sense that they are viewing a progression of the woman being covered, which does a good job in conveying
Silva works to represent African Americans in her artwork, especially portraiture, in order to shed light on a group that was often underrepresented in the past. Silva’s message across, of how African Americans are often underrepresented in artwork, especially portraiture. She wants her work to start conversations about societal issues of racism or social hierarchies.
“People are not willing to talk about religion, or constructs, and racism in the same conversation, and so I’m interested in that. And I’m like, ‘Let’s rethink that,’ because I feel like that’s how things need to be re-taught. If you will just rely heavily on art history, it’s like, people like me didn’t exist in art history. They still don’t exist in art history books. So you can’t tell me that that’s not relevant or important, because people like me have been purposefully excluded. So I’m like, ‘Let’s rethink that, and have some really deep conversations,’” Silva said.
Alberto Lule, another featured student artist, showcased his work, which revolved around the topic of mass incarceration.
A prominent part of Lule’s work involves using fingerprint powder, as used in a crime investigation, to frame his body on a plexiglass surface.
“When you see the art piece, you will see the signifiers of a human body there. You’ll see components of my face, my hands [and] my feet. [It’s] very abstract, but I feel that the surface acts as a type of container for the body. The fingerprint powder is only revealing the medium, which is myself really. There’s DNA on there. So there’s this combination of science, sociology and art that’s happening all at once I feel. It’s very interesting to me to kind of explore these other disciples and bring them into the art space, and see what happens,” Lule said.
A big inspiration for Lule’s art pieces and creative process is the work he does at the Orange County Juvenile Hall. Lule and several other members of his studio organization at UCI, called Underground Scholars Initiative, conduct art lessons for minors who are currently incarcerated in the Orange County Juvenile Hall.
“A lot of these kids … never went to high school. They’re incarcerated there for several years, and the state does not provide that type of [educational support]. It’s outside organizations that come in and conduct things like that. [Our mission is to help them] start thinking critically about their life in this world. For me that’s a huge inspiration, about where art can go or what art can be,” Lule said.
Part of the artistic inspiration that comes from working with these individuals comes with the teamwork and community building atmosphere created.
“[Creating a] community of individuals who all of a sudden are interested in doing landscapes when they have been sitting in a jail cell for a while, … is a very special thing to me. Getting a person to start thinking critically, I think, could also be art” Lule said.
Another student artist, Liz Stringer, structured her work around a more scientific theme.
“I love science. It’s the way I think about metaphor, and so [it usually] the way I think about things in the world and how I look at the world, and that usually somehow comes out in the work that I’m making,” Stringer said.
When describing her piece, Stringer highlights that a big part of it is the small intricate designs etched onto a seemingly plain surface. Systems, or geometric grid-like structures, play a big role in shaping Stringer’s work.
“You’ll start to see hints of something on the plastic surface, and it is this very ornate drawing I did, and that drawing is mediated through a vinyl platter. As you get closer you have this intimate engagement with this drawing that’s etched on the surface that really can only be seen through shadow, projection and refraction … I’ve been thinking a lot about systems and what does it mean to make something that isn’t physical, as a sculptural piece or even as an institution, as a community, as a single body that’s trying to expand itself into the world that we’re living in,” Stringer said.
The piece contained imagery of a vine, but according to Stringer, her work also started with the guiding question “What does it mean to make something invisible?”
The piece has a transparent quality, and when first walking into the gallery room, its texture immediately draws the viewer in. The small, intricate designs etched into the surface of the piece are not noticeable until looking at the piece very up close. These many complex little details help to build the piece and give it a quality of substance, despite its see-through appearance.
Stringer finds that through her drawing, she also is able to form these connections, and really enhance the way she communicates and expresses herself through her artwork.
“Drawing is about thinking about intimacy and getting to know something else through your [own] hand. And so, what does that mean to communicate that to a viewer? And then also with a scientist who’s looking through a light microscope, how through looking at a microscope can they be intimate with something else and get to know it in that way?” Stringer said.
Devin Wilson, another featured artist also has an interest in science in their work, but more so the technological side.
“A lot of the work I’m interested in is at the intersection of queerness and technology. Specifically looking at hybridization and edification, which is a big part of my practice. I work between a lot of mediums but primarily the thing that interests me is incorporating technology into the work both thematically, conceptually, mechanically, and through production” Wilson said.
Wilson uses many forms of digital art, including 3D printing, to express their ideas and create their aesthetic as an artist.
“I collaborate a lot with engineers, computer scientists– I’m really interested in where the [concept] of queerness merges or hybridizes with both the [concept] of technology, specifically looking at Apple as a corporation, and the ways in which I can produce and manufacture using new and emerging technologies.”
They coined their aesthetic as “cyberpunk fantasy” and “queer industrial satire.”
“[My work questions]the ways in which large corporations use homocapitalistic intentions and marketing to profit off of marginalized bodies. A lot of the work I do is an investigation of those signs and symbols that you’d see from advertising, and product design.” Wilson said.
The After Many Sunsets exhibition offered Second Year M.F.A. students a chance to really explore their interests as artists, and showcase some of the work they have been creating over the past year in their time thus far in the Claire Trevor M.F.A. program. Getting to see these differences, yet each uniquely vivid works of art was a very thought-provoking experience. While the mediums, inspirations, and specific messages for these pieces, differed, they all shared a common theme of urging the viewer to engage with and think critically about a particular issue or subject in today’s society.
Sabrina Henderson is a Campus News Intern for the winter 2023 quarter. She can be reached at smhende1@uci.edu.