S.O.K.
Three senior thesis solo exhibitions:
Sloan Watson, Olivia Brewin, Katie Carder
April 22 - 26, 2024
Reception: April 22, 2024, 6-8 pm.
The Guggenheim Gallery is pleased to present S.O.K., a group show comprised of solo capstone projects created by Sloan Watson, Olivia Brewin, and Katie Carder. Featuring sculpture, photography, painting, installation, and assemblage, this thesis exhibition deals with topics of observation, self-reflection, and exposure, encouraging viewers to bear witness to the individual subject matters that each artist seeks to make visible within their work. Watson, Brewin, and Carder unveil concepts that deeply connect with the human experience, creating an interplay of themes that encourages the viewer to engage in an introspective journey, inviting them to contemplate the universality of pain, memory, and documentation.
Sloan Watson (born in Long Beach, CA) is currently located in Orange, California, where she is pursuing a BFA in Studio Art with a minor in Rhetoric and Composition. With an artistic practice centered around the exploration and representation of harm and suffering, Watson’s most recent thesis work integrates avian forms with features of the inner body to depict themes of exposure, pain, and vulnerability through painting and sculpture. Within a digital age where graphic imagery and gore are not only widely accessible, but are treated with both entertainment and shock value, Watson places consideration into questioning the relationship between what we consider to be grotesque versus what we consider to be mundane, as well as how morbidity presents itself in everyday life. Inspired by autopsy and necropsy as modes of bodily exposure, the symbol of the chick captured within different stages of life is used as a model to showcase what lies beneath surface levels such as skin and shells, making visible the more vulnerable aspects of the living condition. Working as an on-campus Gallery Assistant, Watson has exhibited in the group show Reflections in the Realm of the Psychologically Infinite (2023), where she was awarded ‘Best in Show,’ and has also participated in several Student Departmental exhibitions at the Guggenheim Gallery, where she has received awards for ‘Best Sculpture’ and ‘Best Painting.’
Olivia Brewin (born in Thousand Oaks, California) is currently located in Anaheim, California, and is pursuing a BFA in Studio Art with a minor in Business and Economics. Her thesis exhibition considers themes of nostalgia, regeneration, and grief through assemblage and installation. A central aspect is the incorporation of personal artifacts from her past, adding layers of authenticity. In addition, Brewin draws elements from her late grandmother’s artwork as an homage to her passing. Brewin’s intention is to commemorate childhood memories, while simultaneously commemorating those who inspired and guided her creative journey. The work collectively serves as a shrine to say goodbye to innocence and to a loved one, as well as a greeting to the new face of an artistic generation within her family. While working through the hard times of grief, Brewin is facing powerful emotions and turning a moment of self-reflection into art. In 2023, Brewin exhibited in the group show Reflections in the Realm of the Psychologically Infinite at Chapman’s Guggenheim Gallery. Additionally, she has participated in numerous Student Departmental shows, where she won runner-up for ‘Best Advanced Painting’ category in 2022.
Katie Carder (born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada) currently resides in Orange, California, where she is pursuing a BFA in Studio Art and a minor in Graphic Design for Undergrad. Carder is interested in interpersonal relationships and how a sense of community can be created within an environment, with her own environment revolving around team sports and athletic endeavors. In her thesis work, Carder documents the subculture of her softball team, creating a photo exhibition that captures both a version of the human spirit and a sense of community through the lens of intimacy. Through her photographs, she explores themes of individuality, self-expression, relationships, rituals, superstitions, closeness, and curiosity. As an accomplished photographer, Carder has previously been awarded a Gold Key at the Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards and has also received the honor of her work being shown in Chapman University’s annual Student Departmental show. Carder’s photographic practice reveals a deep connection to athletics, a love of documenting moments, and an attraction to capturing the human spirit.
__ SPACE
Three Senior Thesis Solo Exhibitions:
Hannah Emerson, Anna Ledbetter, Mya Mannoni
April 15 - 19, 2024
Reception: Monday, April 15, 2024, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
The Guggenheim Gallery is proud to present capstone projects by Hannah Emerson, Anna Ledbetter, and Mya Mannoni in their thesis exhibition, __Space. Each work deals with the idea of space in a unique and different way. Anna Ledbetter’s work deals with the idea of space within a psychological realm, as her work focuses on the subconscious connection between one’s mind and body and the work created while in this subconscious space. Mya Mannoni’s piece centers around the idea of astronomical space and the prediction of a black hole event. This narrative piece integrates the idea of outer space with one of the oldest human creative practices, textiles. Hannah Emerson’s installation celebrates the importance of her bedroom as a culmination of her life and all of the functions it has served over the years. By visiting this space, people are able to participate in different activities that she has enjoyed throughout her lifetime in her room, as well as aid in reviving this space into an active and social one.
Hannah Emerson’s work revisits and reimagines her childhood bedroom that has spanned her lifetime and invites people to immerse themselves in it in order to revive her room into a social one like it used to be in her childhood. This installation is made up of various objects from her childhood, as well as pieces that she has made, reusing the familiar imagery from her coming of age. Also, hosted events in the space invite people to take part in various activities that Emerson enjoyed in her childhood room and reflect on the various roles it has taken throughout her lifetime: artist studio, hangout space, movie theater, and more. This installation aims to highlight the joy of her childhood and represent the importance of spaces in one’s life. Hannah Emerson is a mixed media artist from Torrance, California. In 2024, she will receive her BFA in Studio Art with a minor in Sociology. Emerson’s work has been showcased at Chapman's Student Scholar Symposium, the annual Departmental Show at the Guggenheim Gallery, and in the group show "Reflections in the Realm of the Psychologically Infinite.” She has received several awards for her work from the Departmental Show, including: Best Photography, Best Mixed Media, and Best Drawing, in addition to being awarded an Undergraduate Scholarly/Creative Grant from the Center for Undergraduate Excellence to support the creation of this installation.
Anna Ledbetter’s series of artworks showcase various patterns and line styles of ink on handmade paper, ranging from bold, expressive strokes to intricate, painstaking details. The built-up layers of lines and marks explore the meticulous process of mark-making as a record of obsessive-compulsive tendencies as a result of internalized feelings. It illustrates how Ledbetter’s mind and body interact with the surface, translating subconscious emotions into tangible marks. The process is automatic, characterized by rapid, aimless movements that yield distinct and personal results and a transfer of energy onto the paper. The mind-body-surface connection started with the creation of handmade paper from Ledbetter’s own sketches made during these moments of automaticity. These gestural marks flow through each individual artwork, uniting them into a cohesive whole. The variation in size and line weight encourages viewers to explore both minute details and overarching themes, immersing them in the realm of internalized feelings and obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Anna Ledbetter is a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2024, she will receive her BFA in Studio Art with a minor in Creative and Cultural Industries from Chapman University. Ledbetter has already been included in various important exhibitions, including Reflections in the Realm of the Psychologically Infinite at Chapman University's Guggenheim Gallery. She has actively immersed herself in the contemporary art world, dedicating the last two years to a role in an art gallery. Ledbetter currently lives and works in Orange, CA.
Mya Mannoni’s three-panel textile was created with the intention to be an artifact for the future without language but inherently human. This work is created by hand, punching each segment of yarn into the cloth. Mannoni hopes that the human hand comes through so whoever or whatever may see this after the blackhole event will know that someone made every stitch. Mya Mannoni was born and raised in Concord, California. She currently attends Chapman University, where she lives and works in Anaheim, California. Mannoni plans to receive her BFA in Studio Art with a minor in Psychology in the Spring of 2024. While at Chapman, she participated in the 2023 Junior thesis exhibition, Reflections in the Realm of the Psychologically Infinite, and held a curatorial internship with The J. Paul Getty Trust in the Summer of 2022.
Echoes of Self
Junior Thesis Exhibition, 2024
Ava Arteaga, David Echevarria, Sophia Mac Arthur, Sarah Mohareb, Kaydance Osborne, Megan Petroni, Hailey Ramos, Olivia San Jose, Chelsea Tate, Maryrose Tran, and Vivianna Juarez
April 8th - 12th, 2024
We would love for you to join us at our opening reception on Monday, April 8th, from 6:00 - 8:00 pm in the Guggenheim Gallery.
Echoes of Self features work by Ava Arteaga, David Echevarria, Sophia Mac Arthur, Sarah Mohareb, Kaydance Osborne, Megan Petroni, Hailey Ramos, Olivia San Jose, Chelsea Tate, Maryrose Tran and Vivianna Juarez. The exhibition is an accumulation of work reflecting the artists’ upbringing, cultural heritage, personal struggles, passions, interests, and sense of identity. Guests will experience mediums ranging from sculpture, textile, painting, drawing on canvas, and ceramic work.
To reflect the artist’s intentions for the exhibition, our juniors decided on the title, Echoes of Self, based on the common themes in this collection of work. This show displays work that reflects the self, echoing our past, present, and future selves.
To pieces of our identity, the show brings unity among students exploring themselves and their sense of creativity. Chapman University’s Art Department fosters a community of students from various backgrounds, disciplines, and interests who work together to display work they want to share with others. Ava Artega explores her Mexican heritage and identity through a textile quilt and ceramic pieces resembling traditional designs native to her culture. Similarly, to understand one’s upbringing, Hailey Ramos was born and raised in East Los Angeles, a place she considers home, and depicted this place in its purest form through paint on canvas. Sarah Mohareb, an Egyptian American artist, has used paint on canvas to completely transform our association with Ancient Egyptian culture and shed light on Modern Egypt and its people. Vivianna Juarez uses watercolor on canvas to depict an Aztec goddess, a reference to traditional Aztec art and her Mexican heritage.
With an emphasis on childhood, Megan Petroni took the liberty to create a series of paintings of herself as a child to reclaim these forgotten memories of crucial stages of her life, reflecting growth and self-discovery. Similarly, Kaydance Osborn used photographic imagery and written text to document her journey as an artist, uncovering valuable life lessons along the way. Sophia Mac Arthur documented her past and current interests through a series of paintings that bridged a connection between her love for art and literature.
To demonstrate his unique style for ink on canvas, David Echevarria transformed the meditative process of stippling, tedious and precise ink dotting on canvas to create powerful imagery. Chelsea Tate, an artist known for her craft with clay, explores the duality between form and function through coil building to create an organic shape resemblant to a vase. Through delicate wire and red reflective beads, Maryrose Tran powerfully transforms these materials into a human heart, depicting grief and personal loss. Olivia San Jose presents a series of works depicting the feminine experience and a zoomed-in lens on voyeurism, themes consistent in her artistic practice through a door, painting, and video projection.
After countless hours of hard work and effort we are overjoyed to invite students, facility, staff, family, and friends to visit the Guggenheim Gallery between April 8th and April 12th to recognize this talented group of artists. Our opening reception is from 6:00 - 8:00 pm on Monday, April 8th; please join us for snacks and a bite to eat to accompany your experience engaging with the work and the artists.
CAKE!
Senior Thesis Exhibition
Chelsea Farinaro, Alexis Espinosa, Kennedy Cardenas, Eugene Kim
April 17th-28th, 2023
Please join us for the opening reception on Monday April 17th, 2023 from 6:00-8:00pm!
Chelsea Farinaro, Alexis Espinosa, Kennedy Cardenas, and Eugene Kim present CAKE!, the BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition. This exhibition, named as a playful acronym of the artist's names, explores the varying external factors that influence identity development in our current socio-political and economic climate. Ranging from issues concerning womanhood, housing, race and the modern digital age, each artist presents work related to how their identities have been molded as a result of these societal phenomena.
Chelsea Farinaro is a 2D feminist artist from the Bay Area working both in Oakland and Orange, California. Her work explores both the internal and external conversations surrounding women's rights and societal pressure to look and feel a certain way in order to aspire to an unrealistic standard. Farinaro aims to express perspectives of her own experience and how that plays into the broader realm of the feminine condition. She often uses oil painting and photography in her work and likes to combine those with collage, mixed media, or sculpture. She is influenced and intrigued by the emotional element inherent to being human and how the process of making those feelings tangible is expressed through visual representation. In Farinaro's work, those feelings are based around the female perspective. She has shown three times at the Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman, and after she graduates, she will start her masters program in the fall at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education.
Alexis Espinosa an interdisciplinary artist, born in the city of Downey and raised in Fullerton, California. She is studying Art at Chapman University, set to receive her BFA in 2022. Espinosa's works primarily indulge in the figurative and narrative areas of visual arts. Her preferred mediums utilize watercolor and ink. Through her education, she has extended her practice into acrylic and oil painting fields and photography. As she is exposed to various technical fields of art, she learns to utilize various mediums to find a narrative and create a story. Espinosa seeks to incite dialogue amongst the viewers, hidden messages inlay in her pieces to be found and conversed upon.
Kennedy Cardenas is an American visual artist whose works consists of painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, mixed media, and installation work. She was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio and is currently based in Orange, California. Cardenas is a senior at Chapman University pursuing a B.F.A. in Studio Art and a B.A. in Psychology with plans to graduate in the spring of 2023. She has been a part of several group exhibitions including a fundraiser for the OC People’s Coalition, the Scholastic Art and Writing exhibition, and several exhibitions through Chapman University at the Guggenheim Gallery. Cardenas’ work surrounds themes of identity and intersectionality, centering the experience of black queer women and challenging systems of oppression in America.
Eugene Kim is a ceramic, digital, and net artist based in Los Angeles, CA. His work explores the duality of human nature through the use of magical girl tropes, glitch, and multiple online identities through avatars. His work studies human behavior in a place completely barren of it and stems from the belief that there are two sides to every human - one that they present to the world, and one that they keep hidden. This concept realizes its place in the online world, where individuals have the ability to create and maintain multiple identities, often with intentions to present a certain persona to the world, communities, and subcultures. Kim has been awarded the Virgina Purcell Award and has shown at Chapman University's Guggenheim Gallery.
Reflections in the Realm of the Psychologically Infinite
Olivia Brewin, Katie Carder, Hannah Emerson, Anna Ledbetter, Mya Mannoni, Sloan Watson
April 10 – April 14, 2023
Reflections in the Realm of the Psychologically Infinite features works by Olivia Brewin, Katie Carder, Hannah Emerson, Anna Ledbetter, Mya Mannoni, and Sloan Watson. Exploring with medium and subject through painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography, the Junior show focuses on the notions of physicality, the subconscious, materiality, communication, representation, nostalgia, and recognition.
Katie Carder is showing a series of images, titled Hidden Messages, that aim to challenge the viewer to engage in and further develop their nonverbal skills and recognition. Nonverbal communication and gestures are how we connect and relate to one another on a deeper level. While written word and verbal communication can be powerful, body language such as eye contact, posture, and gestures can help people to understand someone better and build a level of trust. The 9x9 grid posters contain a hidden message within the still images of the mouth. To help the viewer decipher the hidden messages, gestures, and nonverbal communication tactics are pictured around them in the 8 smaller photographs.
Anna Ledbetter’s piece An Interpretation of the Subconscious Mind is a series that focuses on the process of interpreting one’s dreams and looking at a collective representation of one’s subconscious. Each of the sixteen oil paintings in this series represents individual dreams that were recorded and then interpreted by an outside source that produced an image that the artist then translated into an oil painting. The process of dream analysis and representation is intriguing because the exploration of dreams can provide insight into one’s psyche. This can help individuals understand themselves better and gain insight into their subconscious minds, which can help aid in personal growth and development as well as creativity and artistic inspiration.
Hannah Emerson is showcasing the pieces Validate Me, Valentine’s Day, and Looking Out which each look at different aspects of childhood that still remain today utilizing mixed media. Often when growing up people can feel a sense of distance from past versions of themselves as they forget different moments and memories that used to be vital to their lives. These pieces explore how feelings, holidays, and places can serve as a reminder and a connection to their younger self and how that part of oneself is never fully gone. Each piece utilizes familiar imagery to the artist and ones often found in daily life, including foil star stickers from teachers, conversation hearts, and the window from her mother’s bedroom in her childhood home. With the display of these pieces, the viewer is invited to see inside the personal experiences of the artist and connect with similar experiences and feelings they may have.
Sloan Watson’s work, Headspace; the Physical Weight of a Conscious Mind, is a sculpture that explores the concepts of thought and mental capacity, seeking to visually represent the ways in which these thoughts can weigh on a person’s mind. Taking inspiration from the fact that we likely think between 50,000 and 80,000 thoughts per day, and questioning which of these are ‘core’ thoughts, the sculpture brings attention to the role that these thoughts play in the mind, bringing life and complexity to the work, while simultaneously creating points of stress which, when accumulated, begin to have a physical effect on the rest of the piece. Hung in a way that invites the audience to stand underneath the center of the sculpture, the viewer is encouraged to acknowledge their own state of consciousness, or the ways in which they are ‘present’ both mentally and physically in relation to the work.
Mya Mannoni’s sculptural installation, Grade 5, plays with the ideas of childhood and play itself. Five clay sculptures with their own fabric elements play among a found object welded slide and a colorful four-step hopscotch, the whole scene mimicking an elementary school playground. Each of these five abstract sculptures lacks any defining features, but they hold their own personality and place within the playground that the viewer can assign. The playground on the gallery floor is meant to be walked around and for the viewers to reflect and look, and this installation as a whole is meant to be playful and reflect play. However, hidden within the playfulness there are hints of serious topics such as the defining and labeling of individuals such as ‘the outcast’, ‘the teacher’, ‘the popular kids’, in which the artist questions why such labels are given to the sculptures even when they are without many defining features, with the installation becoming a discussion between art and collective experiences.
Olivia Brewin’s work, Xploration, presents three works from an ongoing series that has emerged within her artistic practice after she had uncovered the beauty of ceramic sculpture, having originally identified herself as a painter. Exploring how the medium is able to translate a different kind of relationship between the art and the artist in the third dimension, the goal of Xploration is to document the latest of her journey with materiality. Of the three sculptures presented, Vase (Untitled), 2022, was the first sculpture to play with and explore material. Bullet, 2023, was made in response to the first piece and thus kicked off the Xploration series, and the most recent sculpture made and the one to inspire the name of the series is Xplore, 2023. Meant to encourage a sense of joyous wonder and curiosity when it comes to playing with something foreign, the works in Xploration serve as a reflection of Olivia Brewin’s celebratory journey of a medium foreign to her artistic field, and viewers are encouraged to walk around and get up close and personal with the work.
Alchemy - Junior Studio Art Exhibition
Chelsea Farinaro & Eugene Kim
August 29 – September 2, 2022
Please join us for the artist reception on Wednesday, August 31, 2022 from 5:00-7:00PM
Historically, alchemy is a practice using chemistry and philosophy to convert base metals, like lead, into gold. However, the Guggenheim Gallery's first exhibition of the Fall 2022 semester, presents a different form of alchemy; one that metamorphizes several traditional and influential works of art into something new. Chelsea Farinaro and Eugene Kim present Alchemy, two bodies of work that draw inspiration from other art and alchemizing it into a more personal perspective.
Chelsea Farinaro pushes forth the idea that art imitates other art. Her sculpture, installation, and 2D work dances between the lines of inspiration and forgery, while blurring it in the process. Her art takes new form from important artwork like da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Louise Bourgeois' Ex Libris. Farinaro's body of work alters the corresponding aesthetic and medium, but leaves the original concepts untouched, riding in that borderless grey area. She unreservedly challenges the idea that life imitates art and the opposite, to yield to the idea that a concept is not limited to one medium or artist. In time, the same art that inspired Farinaro's pieces will be used as an inspiration elsewhere, continuing its lineage of art imitating art.
Eugene Kim continues his study and work in the realm of magical girls, a subgenre of Japanese fantasy media where young girls transform to save the world from evil forces, and pulls direct influence from the children's franchise, Pretty Cure. Included, are 16 digital collages for every season of Pretty Cure from 2004 to 2021, and a silent video showcasing every piece of official merchandise released for the franchise in the same timeframe. Kim not only touches on the reality that this children's show solely made as a source of merchandising, but also how the life of a magical girl may be more difficult than what is shown on screen. The deconstruction of the genre is a prominent theme in his work and this colorfully explosive body of work is no different, because behind the image that magical girls uphold, is still a normal young girl.
Student Departmental Exhibition - Spring 2021. This exhibition was juried by the Art Department Faculty. Two or more votes were necessary for student’s works to be included. Our two outside jurors June Edmonds and Ron Athey juried the awards.
Nicole Daskas - A Retrospective, Spring 2021
Various Disasters - Senior Thesis Exhibition Spring 2021: Olivia Collins, Morgan Grimes and Alyssa Tucker
Introspection - The Junior Sh**t Show Spring 2021: Emilie Dashe, Kati Dean, Alexis Espinosa, Lindsay Goltz, Robyn Miller, Sofia Montgomery, Jeanna Polisini, Fiona Quilter, and Hannah Scott
Juried Student Departmental Exhibition Fall 2020 - This exhibition was juried by the Art Department Faculty. Three or more votes were necessary for student’s works to be included. Our two outside jurors iris yirei hu and David Bell juried the awards.
FEMINISM, CODING AND TOXIC PAINTS - Spring 2020 Junior Studio Art Exhibition; Olivia Collins, Nicole Daskas, Morgan Grimes and Alyssa Tucker
THE SHOW MUST GO HOME – Chapman University’s Senior Studio Art Thesis Exhibition 2020; The exhibition presents the works of Lakelyn Bagge, Anya Cappon, Sophie Chace, Alondra Costilla, Tram Dang, Dara Feller, Blake Hilton, Sammy Keane, Lydia McKee, Izzie Panasci and Sophie Ungless.