Student and Exhibition Highlights

Fall 2024

Grad students Claire Fall Blanchette and Porter McDonald and faculty members Ellen McMahon, Nicole Antebi and Pooja Kumar Venkatachalam collaborated on a new series of STEM art exhibitions, “Artistic Expression of Original Research.” The first one was Nov. 22, at the Arizona Astrobiology Center in the Sonett Space Sciences Building. Photos

Students Nina Garcia, Aubrey Behrens, Skylar Franklin and Mrunali Yadav presented their mural proposals for the Optical Sciences building on Oct. 31 in Professor Kelly Leslie’s “Clients in the Community” class. Representatives from the the University of Arizona Wyant College of Optical Sciences listened to the proposals and voted on the winning design — Garcia’s. The rest of Leslie’s class will begin painting the mural in early December. The class is also working on a mural this semester for Casa de Encanto, a golf cart wrap for the University of Arizona Museum of Art and a shrine design for Santa Cruz Church celebrating the contribution of five Catalonian martyrs who made contributions to Southern Arizona. Photos

The College of Fine Arts celebrated its brightest stars Oct. 25 at the 2024 Achievement Awards, including the University of Arizona School of Art’s Ben Davis and Tucker Grams, who were named Creative Achievement Award winners. Details

Graduate students Triston Blanton, Austin Caswell and Matthew Kennedy and nine School of Art alums were among the 41 artists selected for the 2024 Arizona Biennial. A record 560 artists submitted their work, showcasing the state’s rich and varied artistic practices, for the 38th Biennial (Oct. 19-Feb. 9, 2025) at the Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block. Story

The College of Fine Arts honored 15 Medici Scholars from the School of Art on Oct. 14. Art and Visual Culture Education grad student Ling-yu Chou and MFA candidate Dylan Hawkinson spoke at the celebration, explaining their work and projects to donors and other guests. The other scholars: Aubrey Behrens, Andres Caballero, Austin Caswell, Ben Davis, Faye Dowling, ziyu Feng, Sarah B Greenwell-Scott, Alyssa Moorman, Semoria Mosley, Vanessa Saavedra, Robyn Ann Stea, Lyrissa Nicole Tuyin and Mehraveh Vahediyan.

Eden Squires, Sabrina Mendivil, Lyrissa Tuyin and Valeria Granados talked about their exhibition, “Dystopian Dreams,” in a closing reception Oct. 5 at Sculpture Tucson, 3420 E. River Road. They produced the installations in Associate Prof. Joseph Farbrook’s spring 2023 class. Photos

Reese McFarland, AJ Schuldt and other School of Art students who joined the new Student-Made Arizona participated in several pop-up markets this fall to promote their products and services, such as jewelry, phone cases, art prints, crocheted goodies, photography and apparel. McFarland makes energy-filled beaded bracelets “that are appealing to wear but also always close to your heart,” she says, while Schuldt creates paw-print earrings. “I joined Student-Made to learn more about the business world,” she says. Story

Studio Art major Jaydn Chavarria‘s “Na’ashje’ii” was part of the “Printmakers 2024” exhibition at the Contreras Gallery, 110 E. Sixth St., earlier this fall. Chavarria, who also took STEM classes at Pima Community College, is a relief printmaking artist who specializes in multiblock prints. Chavarria won Best of Show for “Na’ashje’ii” at the 2024 Annual Juried Student Art Exhibition at Pima’s Louis Carlos Bernal Art Gallery and received a scholarship from Paperworks. Photos

Graduate students Andrés Caballero and Ben Davis, along with production assistant Emiland Kray (MFA ’23), showed off their new artist book — “Del otro lado” (“On the other side”) — Aug. 29 in the School of Art lobby. The project is part of the “Reclaiming the Border Narrative,” a group of U.S.-Mexico borderlands artists, advocates, journalists and cultural practitioners who are collaborating with the University of Arizona Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry and UA Libraries Special Collections to build a digital archive to advance migrant justice. Students, campus groups and others interested in seeing the book can email Caballero at andrescaballero@arizona.edu. Digital archive info

Exhibitions

“Borderland Masks”: MFA student Andrés Caballero hosted an opening reception for his exhibition at the Lionel Rombach Gallery on Oct. 24. The show, which ran until Oct. 31, also featured work by fellow MFA student Vanessa Saavedra and Ulises Ramos. Caballero’s project, developed with the support of the Mellon-Fronteridades Graduate Fellowship, began with oral history recordings that culminated in a series of multimedia pieces telling the stories of a group of Lucha Libre wrestling fans around the U.S.-Mexico border. By collaborating with the Lucha Libre community and delving into the personal stories of its followers, the exhibition fostered a greater understanding of this folkloric practice and its impact on individual and collective identities. Arizona Sonoran News profile and earlier School of Art profile.

“Realidades Fronterizas”: MFA student Vanessa Saavedra examined and reflected on the complex realities of life at the U.S.-Mexico border in her Oct. 3-11 solo exhibition at the Lionel Rombach Gallery. Growing up in Nogales, Sonora, after moving from Jalisco at 8 years old, Saavedra said she experienced firsthand how the border shaped her identity. With support from a Confluencenter grant and Special Collections, she draws from the University of Arizona Libraries’ “Reclaiming Border Narratives” archive to express the emotions and cultural dimensions of border life through painting. Two of Saavedra’s paintings depict cars waiting at the border. “The border’s physical and metaphorical lines directly influenced my perspective, symbolizing waiting, transition and daily movement,” Saavedra said. “Through my work, I invite viewers to actively engage with this intersection of culture, struggle and resilience.” Reception photos, video

“Where I’m From…”:  On view from Aug. 27 to Sept. 20, the interactive exhibition invites students and visitors to co-create an installation by adding to the collaborative fiber wall sculpture in the Lionel Rombach Gallery. Based on the teachings of bell hooks, and conceived of as a capacity-building game which later became an exhibition, “Where I’m From…” encourages finding connections with strangers through celebrating common lived experiences across time and space.

Summer 2024

Medici Scholar Ling-Yu Chou presented at the United States Society for Education through Art Conference in Santa Fe this summer, thanks to support from the CFA Medici Circle. Chou is a third-year PhD student majoring in Art & Visual Culture Education, minoring in East Asian Studies. Her project is “Bridging Cultures through Art: East Asian Ink Painting in the Southwest Landscape.” “My interest in East Asian ink painting stems from its profound emphasis on the interconnectedness of all things, a concept beautifully captured through the flowing energy of “Qi” in Taoist philosophy,” Chou said. Story

Graduate student Galen Dara was featured in a UA News story about the 10-year anniversary of the University of Arizona Museum of Art‘s Mapping Q, an art-based program for LGBTQ youth founded by UAMA curator Chelsea Farrar (MA ’13). Dara will be the teaching artist for the program this semester. “I’m leading an eight-week workshop teaching LGBRQia+youth how to design for the risograph printing process, and how to use the medium to express themselves through art making,” Dara says.

MFA candidate Austin Caswell was included in the juried online exhibition, “Sea Change,” organized by Midwest Nice Art. More details

Lyrissa Nicole (3D & Extended Media) presented her summer research — “Empowering Artists with Accessibility Guidelines” — along with over 140 other graduate school-bound undergraduates from U of A and schools across the United States on Aug. 2 at McClelland Hall and Aug. 3 at the Student Union. School of Art Galleries Director lydia see mentored Nicole in the project.

PhD student Jenna S. Green helped curate “The Place Where Clouds Are Formed,” a collaborative, multilingual exhibition of photography, sculpture and poetry that includes the work of alumna Alice Wilsey (BFA ’10, Studio Art) and Tohono O’odham artists at the Center for Creative Photography and University of Arizona Poetry Center through Aug. 31. Read this Southwest Contemporary review of the project, which features photography made in partnership with the Traditional O’odham Leaders (TOL) and communities from villages in Quitovac, Cu:wĭ I-ge:sk (San Francisquito), and Sonoyta — towns in Sonora, Mexico — as well as Quitobaquito and the surrounding lands in Southern Arizona. Images and sculptures are in conversation with poems written and recorded in O’odham and English and translated into Spanish.

Nicolette Gomez, a Design, Arts & Practice (DAP) major and a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, is helping others learn how to start a business. She’s executive director of a startup that teaches web design, marketing and other technology-based skills to aspiring entrepreneurs, especially those in tribal communities. Gomez also created a tandem lab program to foster Pascua Yaqui entrepreneurs. Story

A July Arizona Illustrated video on Sculpture Tucson featured interviews with recent School of Art graduates Sabrina Mendivil and Eden Squires, and alumna Barbara Grygutis. Also in the video is Associate Professor Joseph Farbrook, who curated a student exhibition, “Dystopian Dreams,” which is on display this summer at The Post House at Sculpture Tucson, 3240 E. River Road, Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Video

Kaya Glasner (BFA ’24, Illustration, Design & Animation) was one of 12 students nationally accepted into the UCLA Animation Workshop — the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television‘s Animation MFA program. Watch Glasner’s BFA Capstone animation project.

Art & Visual Culture Education grad students Jenna S. Green (left) and Sirilak Rottler for presenting their pilot research project at the United States Society for Education through Art (USSEA) Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on June 15. In “Visual Journaling as a Salve to Competing Crises: A Collaborative Trauma-Informed Arts-Based Experiment,” Green (PhD) and Rottler (MA) explored how, as two graduate students with shared and different interests and identities, they can develop a reflexive practice via visual/verbal journaling. “This inquiry centered a trauma-Informed lens and advocated for multiple ways of knowing as a response to the competing crises of capitalism, neoliberalism and white supremacy in art education,” Green says. “Soon we’ll bind the large pages together to create our own visual/verbal journal.”

Spring 2024

MFA candidate Galen Dara was named a Hugo Award finalist as best professional artist for the seventh time for her science fiction and fantasy illustrations. “There’s something powerful about artists and writers who explore the fantastic,” says Dara. Story

Grayson Agrella, who spent his time at the University of Arizona breaking down barriers in the LGBTQ+ world, has been named the spring 2024 Outstanding Senior for the University of Arizona School of Art. Triple majoring in Art history, Anthropology and French, Agrella is a W.A. Franke Honors College student with a GPA of 3.974. Agrella wrote multiple papers about LGBTQ+ rights and issues as well as political art during the AIDS epidemic. He continues this theme for his honors thesis, focusing on various types of activist engagement for transgender youths. “Both of these were topics that felt personally relevant, and it was intellectually invigorating to incorporate the politicalized identities of queerness into my studies of visual culture,” he said. Story

Sarah Greenwell-Scott was named the 2024 Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant for the School of Art. She’s pursuing a PhD in Art History with an emphasis in Contemporary Art and Theory, focusing on Contemporary Indigenous Art and minoring in American Indian Studies. In addition to her academic and teaching pursuits, she has also co-chaired the School of Art Graduate Student Council, a graduate representative for the School of Art Advisory Board, Visiting Artists and Scholars Endowment (VASE), and a member of the Art History Graduate Student Association. More details

MFA candidates Andrés Caballero and Ben Davis (Photo, Video and Imaging) and undergrad Jem Abarca (3DXM) received Visual Arts scholarships from the Arizona Artists Guild. See the students’ work at https://arizonaartistsguild.net/2024-scholarship-recipients/

First-year MFA candidate Alexis Hagestad (Photo, Video and Imaging) was named to the 2024-25 cohort of the Carson Scholars Program. Alexis is researching the visualization of bat echolocation within bat species throughout Arizona! Scholarships of $5,000 per calendar year are awarded through a competitive process to current UArizona graduate students committed to interdisciplinary research on environment and society. Read more about Alexis at https://carson.arizona.edu/person/alexis-hagestad and at https://ajhagestad.com/

Second-year MFA student Semoria Mosley (Photo, Video & Imaging) and four other College of Fine Arts students presented their projects as part of the 2023-24 JustArts Fellowship cohort on March 25 at the University of Arizona Museum of Art. Semoria’s installation, “Outside the Network,” will feature campus telephone booths on the UA Mall for participants to record a message after listening to a previous student’s message. She hopes the project will foster intimacy and recognition between students from “different sides of the tracks” — culminating in an interactive, campus-wide art and audio popup event, where the university’s 40,000 students can hear one another. The JustArts program, led in part by School of Art Professor Amy Kraehe, offers fellowships of $6,000, plus a $1,500 execution budget to students.

Ever Brooks, Maria Celis and Sedona Heidinger — awardees of the school’s 2023-24 Museum Studies Research Paper Prize — gave presentations Jan. 26 in Room 312. Brooks (Live and Immersive Arts) won the Undergraduate Prize for “Bringing the Past into the Present: Interpreting Slavery and Engaging Descendants of Slavery in Plantation Museums, Historic Houses, and Living History Museums.” Celis (Art & Visual Culture Education) took the Masters Prize for “Decolonizing Self Through Art Exposure.” Heidinger (Art History) won the PhD Prize for “Mindfulness in Museums: A Fraught, Entangled History of Colonialism and Control.” Photo

MFA student Andrés Caballero (Photography, Video and Imaging) received the 2024 Mellon-Fronteridades Graduate Fellowship. The award will allow the Fulbright Scholar to finish a project, “Borderlands Masks,” which includes large-scale prints, video and oral history recordings as he explores the fascinating lucha libre wrestling events around the border region in Sonora, Mexico, and Arizona. The university’s Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry awarded six graduate fellows and six faculty fellows this year to amplify diverse border narratives through research, arts and creative endeavors on the U.S.-Mexico border. Story and KGUN9-TV interview

MFA students Jacqueline Arias, Dylan Hawkinson and Aubrey Behrens joined two undergrads from the fashion program and BFA student Jaime Barca (model in show) at the InVisibility SALON on Feb. 28 at the Tornabene Theatre. “Fringe Empathy” explored the nature of transformation as a generative force for making the hidden and oppressed visible and present. The students chose their materials based on their transformative potential. In collaboration with Athena Carmona and Andres Bherens from Norton School of Human Ecology, BA, Fashion Industry’s Science and Technology, the group showcased wearable sculptures in the performance. Photos 

Riso Club members installed their artwork at @groundworkstucson, which hosted their “Riso Adjacent” group exhibit through Feb. 29. A reception was held Feb. 25, with riso prints for sale. The show featured artworks by students and faculty in a variety of mediums (not just risograph printing), including Hannan Aguirre, Aubrey Behrens, Triston Blanton, Andrés Caballero, Ben P. Davis, Galen Dara, Ashley Deniz, Drew Grella, Sydney Hearn, Jenn Liv, AnneMarie Standridge and Saedi Wadman. Join the club

Undergraduates (from left) Isabella Way, Eliza Saunders and Marcelino Flores, interns at GeoDécor Fossils and Minerals this spring, gave tours of GeoDecor’s 4,000-square-foot gallery, 1635 N. Oracle Road, during weekends at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show through Feb. 11. The three also helped with installation at the gallery, which includes fully-mounted dinosaurs, a gigantic Eocene crocodile, woolly mammoth tusks, limestone murals with fossil fishes and palm fronds and mineral specimens. “It’s amazing how much time and and energy it takes, and how meticulous you have to be” during the installation, Isabella said. Photos

Friday Features: Ana Monobe, who was born in Ensenada, Mexico, will earn her BFA from the University of Arizona School of Art in 2024 as a member of the Honors College. … Maddux Muench, who hails from Flower Mound, Texas, is a Psychology major and Studio Art minor. … AVCE student Jocelyn James works primarily with collage materials and draws inspiration from her experiences as a black woman. … Matthew Joseph Leyva was initially inspired by a Rene Magritte painting titled “Time Transfixed,” and takes inspiration from Baroque, Romantic and Surrealist art.

Exhibitions

Carrying on a tradition since 1970, seven graduate students from the School of Art presented  their work in the 2024 MFA Thesis Exhibition in collaboration with the University of Arizona Museum of Art. The April 15-May 10 exhibition, “Leaving to Arrive,” featured installations by Jacqueline Arias, Nathan Cordova, Drew Grella and Dana Smith in UAMA; and Hanan Khatoun, Tessa Laslo and Anita Maksimiuk in the school’s Joseph Gross Gallery. A sneak-peek was held April 16 and a public closing reception on May 9. MFA website and Story

Spring 2024 BFA Capstone Exhibition: The show featured work of these student artists from the Illustration, Design & Animation program: Olive Bingham, Kayla Bradshaw, Luis Esquer, Henry Frobom, Jeremiah Garcia, Kaya Glasner, Emilee Gustafson, Cami Hagen, Tate Harper, Hannah Kleker, Nathalia Lara Pizarro, Olivia Morey, Diana Morse, Vivian Nguyen, Tori Pacheco, Malaquias Palacios, Ryan Pittner, Rick Prober, Esperanza Ries, Ivan Rodriguez, Madai Ruiz Palacios, Brianna Salazar, Joesph Siml, Alisha Stadler, Annemarie Standridge, Aspen Stivers, Cassie Sweet, Jessica Valencia, Saedi Wadman and Maya Wong. Slideshow

2024 IDA Spring Showcase: Students from Simon Hinchliffe’s and Jenn Liv’s Illustration, Design & Animation capstone classes held a reception for the 2024 IDA Spring Showcase on May 3. Photos

“Beneath the Surface”: Fourteen students from graduate programs across the School of Art and the Department of English, part of INFUSE, presented artwork in the Lionel Rombach Gallery from May 1-10, with a reception on May 2. The works included:

2024 BFA Exhibition: More than 300 people attended the Feb. 22 opening reception of the 2024 BFA Exhibition, which runs until March 22 at the Joseph Gross and Lionel Rombach Galleries. “What a vibrant event it was,” said Andrew Schulz, dean of the College of Fine Arts, who praised the students’ “strong work.” Story, photos and students presenting

“Nice to Meet You”: Featuring new work across media, the First-Year MFA Showcase “Nice to Meet You” celebrated incoming students in the Master of Fine Arts program. The annual exhibition ran from Jan. 19-30 at the Lionel Rombach Gallery, and features:

Fall 2023

Alexis Campos was named the school’s Outstanding Senior for fall 2023. Campos shared what she learned in our Art and Visual Culture Education program with children from the Sunnyside Unified School District, where she attended classes while growing up in Tucson. Story

Senior Grayson Agrella was named a Centennial Achievement Undergraduate Award recipient — one of the highest honors a student can achieve at the University of Arizona. Grayson, a triple major in Art History, Anthropology and French, was recognized Dec. 5 by the Dean of Students Office at a luncheon. Story

MFA candidate Deborah Ruiz (Studio Art) became an Alzheimer’s Association volunteer after her mother, Zoe, was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia. Deb is featured near the end of this Green Valley News/Sahuarita Sun story about a free class, “The Art of Memory,” for Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers at the Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block.

School of Art student workers Ava Sheppard and Zuly Bustamante represented the school at the Johnson Primary School’s STEAM event (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) on Nov. 21. They designed a big coloring poster for children to work on. Photos

MFA candidate Claire Fall Blanchette received the 2023 Marcia Grand Centennial Sculpture Prize. She presented her exhibition, “To Pass Through Two Doors at Once,” at the Lionel Rombach Gallery from Nov. 9  to Dec. 15. The exhibition consisted of mycelium-grown bricks built into two interacting walls. Story and exhibition photos

Senior BFA student Isabel Orozco-Anguiano produced standout work in Associate Professor Larry Gipe‘s “Contemporary Drawing Studio Practice” class (ART 401). Photos

Students Esperanza Ries, Olivia Cabelli and Truman Adams created a 14-foot tall puppet to greet Little Amal on campus on Oct. 28. Video

MFA candidate Jacqueline Arias presented her show, “Rays of Resilience,” Oct. 27 at the Center for Creative Photography. The multimedia artwork featured lumens (alternative process photography) and narration by Arias, and a text and musical scoring by Chris Zatarain.

Nathan Cordova, an MFA candidate in the school’s nationally ranked Photography, Video and Imaging program, began work on his “Ghosts and Shadows” audio/visual project after receiving the 2023 Mellon-Fronteridades Graduate Fellowship. Not only did Cordova interview his labor-activist uncle, but the grad student also curious about “the way I’ve proposed to engage with the agency of the material that comprises a lot of the border wall.” Story

MFA candidate Deborah Ruiz was featured by Arizona Arts for her summer fellowship at the Penland School of Craft, where she honed her typography skills, thanks to support from the College of Fine Arts Medici Circle donors. Story

PhD student Sedona Heidinger visited historical sites and archives across New Mexico related to the Transcendental Painting Group, thanks to support from the College of Fine Arts Medici Circle donors. More details

PhD student Jenna Green traveled to New York to be an emerging participant in the 2023 Mind & Life Summer Research Institute, thanks to support from the College of Fine Arts Medici Circle donors. Story

Maya Jackson, a MFA student in Photography, Video, and imaging, and PhD student Savanah Pennell were among the University Fellows Cohort for 2023-2024. Story

Gem Elena Abarca, a 3D and Extended Media major, was selected by the College of Fine Arts to be highlighted in TeenLife’s Performing & Visual Arts College Q&A advertisement, which reaches prospective students internationally. “I came into my first year being an engineering student, but … took a leap to follow my passion and dream of being an artist,” Abarca said. See the Q&A. See the Q&A

Karina Buzzi, an MFA candidate in Photography, Video & Imaging, held an exhibition until Sept. 20 at the Center for Creative Photography Gallery 1. Details

Over the summer, MFA candidate galen dara participated in a five-week illustration residency at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, thanks to the College of Fine Arts’ Medici Circle. Story

MFA candidate Semoria Mosley (Photography, Video and Imaging) is one of the 2023-24 Just Arts Fellows. Read more

Ricardo Chavez, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Art History and Education program, researched the Black Panther Party in the Stanford University’s Special Collections, thanks to support from the College of Fine Arts Medici Circle donors.  Chavez spent time researching records, photographs and periodicals on the history of the Black Panther Party in the Huey P. Newton Foundation Inc. Collection. His research supports his question in the teaching of art and activism in California during the counterculture and civil unrest of the 1960s and 1970s.

Exhibitions

Student artists Lyrissa T, Linda Garcia Escobar and Gem Elena Abarca held a reception Aug. 31 for their exhibition “Roots of Resilience” at the Lionel Rombach Gallery. The exhibition, which ran Aug. 17-Sept. 8., delved into the artists’ personal histories and investigated the roots connected to their identities. As members of The Sienna Collective, the artists offered their perspectives and a safe space for all to engage in conversation. Video and Photos

In the Oct. 4-20 “Over, Under, Through” collaborative drawing exhibition, visitors of all skill levels could draw directly on the wall of the Lionel Rombach Gallery with the provided materials. The exhibition was organized by the School of Art Galleries and First Year Experience (FYE) staff and faculty, and co-created with students and visitors.

Students in adjunct instructor Gladys Wallace’s ART 265 classes (beginning design studio) featured their work, “semiotics: 2 degrees of separation,” in the hallway starting the week of Oct. 9. Photos 

SPRING 2023

Check out these cool final student projects from Assistant Professor Nicole Antebi‘s spring 2023 Animation 1 ART 306B class. The reel, edited by Diana Marie, includes projects from a revised sequence or expansion of a previous animation project from the semester. Video

Antebi’s spring 2023 Motion ART 462D students did a great job on their final “Rotoscope Reel” project, utilizing a live-action dance sequence as a reference for their frame-by-frame animation. Video

Fatema Abizar, a fourth-year BFA student Fatema Abizar, held a reception for her exhibition, “The Shape of Their Hands,” March 2 at the Lionel Rombach Gallery. Abizar worked across mediums of gouache, acrylic, printmaking and natural dyes to capture the space between artist and mother. Photos

Jacqueline Arias held a reception for her exhibit, “Mola: Truth Maps,” on March 5 at the Hilltop Gallery in Nogales, Arizona. The grad student’s show considered the meaning of molas — artisanal quilt designs made by indigenous Guna women in Panama. Photos

Ben Davis, a grad student, received a $1,000 scholarship from PaperWorks-The Sonoran Collective of Paper and Book Artists and presented his work on May 11 at St. Francis in the Foothills. “Through the use of photography, book arts and collage, I have been making my own histories of mundane materials that I view as cultural relics,” Ben says (https://tinyurl.com/SOADavis23). “By exploring different narratives and routes in objects and media I hope to inspire the viewer to think critically about the histories of what surrounds us.” PaperWorks awards scholarships to students focused on paper arts, photography, printing, painting and bookbinding from Pima Community College and the University of Arizona. Photos

Mariel Miranda was named the 2023 “Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant” for the School of Art by the College of Fine Arts. Details

Calista Olander was named the School of Art’s Outstanding Senior for spring 2023. The Art History major used her ballet training to help her excel at the School of Art and land a spot in Columbia University’s Art History and Archaeology master’s program. She minored in Japanese and mathematics, learned two other languages, helped curate multiple student exhibitions, interned at MOCA Tucson … and studied the history of Korean and Italian cinema and carried a 4.0 grade-point average. Story

Deborah Ruiz was named a First Place Finalist and Bio5 Innovation Award winner at the Student Showcase 2023 by the UA Graduate and Professional Student Council (GPSC). Earlier this month at an AIGA Arizona event, the grad student and Sienna Collective member presented her research on how utilizing design, typography and letterpress printing can help preserve people’s memories as they age. … Ruiz also was a featured speaker in a design education event — “Design, Letterpress Printing & Memory” on April 8 at ASU Polytechnic campus. She talked about how utilizing design, typography and letterpress printing can be a help in preserving memory as we age.

Nupur Sachdeva, an Art & Visual Culture Education Ph.D. student, presented her exhibition, “(co)creating herstory: educurated artivism,” from March 28 to April 7 at the Lionel Rombach Gallery. The show, with an opening reception on March 30, honored groups such as the University of Arizona’s Women & Gender Resource Center — and the power of the arts to make their work visible. The project was made possible by donors to the College of Fine Arts Fund for Excellence and Common Grand Alliance Herstory funds. Photos

Tia Stephens‘ documentary “Every Last Drop” screened May 2 at the Loft Cinema. Stephens, a senior, is graduating with honors in Studio Art (Photography, Video and Imaging) and is a double major in International Relations. “I want this film to serve as a way to reconnect people with water,” she said. Story

Gabrielle Walter, a Master of Fine Arts candidate in Illustration and Design, surprised famed basketball analyst – and NBA legend – Bill Walton, with a newly painted chair he uses when broadcasting games from McKale Memorial Center. Walter incorporated Walton’s love for the Sonoran Desert and the Grateful Dead band in the artwork. “I wanted to make sure the design was a culmination of all the things near and dear to his heart,” said Walter, a fellow Deadhead, who chatted with Walton via Zoom on Jan. 7, when Arizona Athletics presented the yellow chair to Walton before the men’s basketball game against Washington State. Story and video

Awardees

• Delaney Fisher, M.A. Prize, Classical Archaeology, “The Shelby Collection: Provenance & Stylistic Analysis of Limestone Cypriot Heads”
• Sedona Heidinger, Ph.D. Prize, Art History, “Dimbula/Dimbola: Julia Margaret Cameron in Ceylon”
• Denham Carlisle, Undergraduate Prize, Art History, “European Attitudes to New World Gold in the 16th Century and Beyond”

The School of Art honored students Grace Marie Gousman (Art History, Undergraduate Prize), Madeline Schierl (Art and Visual Education, M.A. Prize) and Jenna Green (AVCE, Ph.D. Prize) during the Museum Studies Graduate Certificate Program 2022-23 Awards Ceremony. More details

Exhibitions

• Scratching the Surface: Students from galen dara smith’s “Scratching the Surface” summer sketchbook class (ART 404) presented an exhibition, “Scratching the Surface,” from May 22 to June 30 at the Lionel Rombach Gallery, with a reception on June 2. The students took working field trips to various campus and off-campus places to practice, and used the Lionel Rombach Gallery as an open classroom and visual incubator to display their work. In the class were Munwar Aldawish, Olive Bingham, Bunny Uy Cue, Phoebe Dubisch, Amber Mehta, Ana Monobe, Teaya Sherman-Harris, Jeanne Stewart, Sabrina Vincent and Monte White.

• MFA Thesis Exhibition: Carrying on a tradition that began in 1970, six School of Art graduate students are presenting their work in the 2023 Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition in collaboration with the University of Arizona Museum of Art. The exhibition, with three installations in UAMA and three in the school’s Joseph Gross Gallery, ran from April 15 to May 13. An opening reception was held April 20 at the school’s atrium. The MFA Exhibition featured installations by Alain Co, Mariel Miranda and Gabrielle Walter in the Joseph Gross Gallery and Emily Kray, Jesus Sanchez-Alvarez and Jandey Shackelford in the UAMA Gallery.

• IDA Capstone Thesis: BFA students in Illustration, Design and Animation presented their capstone thesis show May 11 in the School of Art lobby. IDA Assistant Professor of Practice Simon Hinchliffe and Cy Barlow with the College of Fine Arts documented their work on this website page. The student artists: Grace Rhyne, Alexia Romandia, Isabel Austin, Isabel Luevano, Hailey Jo Smith, John Konrad, Ellenor Spencer, Madison Ritscher, Madison Evans, Michael Miscio, Isabella DeFine, Kiana Chan, Nettie Gastelum, Shiloh Cosby, Alan Castillo, Echo Rigg, Laura Rincon, Kate Louis, Keelie jones, Chyla Gonsowski and Hailey Pate. Photos from reception

• Lucky Me: Infuse, a group of graduate student artists, writers and researchers, presented their exhibition ‘Lucky Me!” in the Lionel Rombach Gallery. They held their reception May 10 in the Lionel Rombach Gallery. Infuse is co-organized by Astrid Liu, Emily Kray and Jackie Arias. Other exhibition collaborators included Leah Mensch and Cameron Carr; Hanan Khatoun, Sydney Streightiff and Jenna Green; Yvette Saenz and Moisés Delgado; and Isaac Morano and Sarah Fenter. Photos

• While It Lasts: The May 5 “While It Lasts” exhibition reception featured works from Photography, Video and Imaging capstone undergraduate students under Regents Professor Sama Alshaibi at the Steinfeld Warehouse’s Subspace. The artists were Sara Apostolik, Lizzie Bell, Jackie Cabrera, Kimberly Calles, Mckenzie Campas, Caitlyn Jarrett, Marcello Martinoli, Tanya Robles, Fernanda Silva Mendoza, Ariana Valencia and Jessica Wolff. Photos

• Art Research in the Unruly World: Students in the “Art Research in the Unruly World: Questions, Forms & Methods” (SCCT 510) Ph.D. class presented their work on May 2 at the Palo Verde Gallery in the Grad Lab. The class, through the SCCT Graduate Interdisciplinary Program, was co-taught by Profs. Ellen McMahon and Hai Ren (East Asian Studies). The students and their work: Yoon Ahn – The Art of Being; Courtney Bryant – Ode to Agriculture; Keyania Rayshell Campbell – 1 02 in Shreveport; Nathan Cordova – Plastic Bodies; Mathilde ‘De Boer – Apology-Esque; Mei Du & Huiqi Zhang – The New Dictionary of Affect; Haydon Ekstrom – Abduction, Anxiety, Anthropocene; Shiloe Fontes – Using Nature for Using Nature; Drew Grella – Convenience Vessel#; Camden Hardy – Mediated Relations; Majerle Lister – Untitled; Claire Taylor – Excuse Me Miss; Luke Xin – The Bodies of Sensation; Qingqing Yang – Ewenki Human-Reindeer Community; and Yanchen Zhang – Unzipping the Earth.

• Shaping Conduits: Eleven students in the Graduate Interdisciplinary Critique (ART 642) class held their end-of-semester gallery show, “Shaping Conduits,” on April 28 at the Palo Verde Gallery, 1231 N. Fremont Ave. The students were: Jacqueline Arias, Triston Blanton, Nathan Cordova, Ben Davis, Drew Grella, Hanan Khatoun, Anita Maksimiuk, Deborah Ruiz, Dana Smith, Claire Taylor and Mahraveh Vahediyan.

• 380 Pop-Up: Students from Prof. Lawrence Gipe’s ART 380 painting class held their “380 Pop-Up” exhibition April 27 at the school’s Grey Door Gallery. The students: Shannon Blaire, Zevi Bloomfield, Cece Chavez, Nicole Cue, Chyla Gonsowski, Iliana Gonzales, Emma Kageyama, Thurwin Lane, Viridiana Meda, Siarra Medina, Amber Mehta, Javier Mendoza, Erika Moreno, Isabel Orozco-Anguiano, Louis Pellerito, Andres Sanchez and Ava Sheppard. Photos

• Nice to Meet You, Too: Students Karina Buzzi, galen dara, Vanessa Saavedera and Claire Taylor presented their work in the “Nice to Meet You, Too” exhibition in the Lionel Rombach Gallery from April 17-21. Photos

• BFA Exhibition/UAMA Exhibition: Undergraduate students presented the 2023 BFA Exhibition in the Joseph Gross Gallery from March 16-April 3 and a UAUA Exhibition in the Lionel Rombach Gallery from March 13-24. A joint reception was held March 16. Photos

• Tucson Zine Fest: Students from the School of Art’s Riso Club — Hanan Khatoun, Gabi Walter, Deb Ruiz, Galen Dara and Triston Blanton — along with adjunct instructors Katie Watson and Jesse Hinson participated in the 2023 Tucson Zine Fest on April 15 at the Steinfeld Warehouse’s Subspace. Photos

• School of Art students Drew Grella, Diana Marie Morse and Claire Taylor helped with a visual interpretation of students’ debates and stories for the Regents Cup on Feb. 26. “The wall was an absolute hit and everyone involved fell in love with it,” Morse said. The University of Arizona’a team won the overall competition — a two-part storytelling and Oxford-style debate contest intended to celebrate free speech and democratic engagement across the state’s three public universities. Photos

• Prof. Nicole Antebi’s spring 2023 Animation 1 ART306b class produced a 24-frame flip book demonstrating the Squash & Stretch principle of animation in their first project. Video

SPRING/FALL 2022

Ava Christensen, a December Art History grad, was one of two recipients of the Naomi and Samuel Greenfield Endowed Scholarship through University of Arizona Libraries, where she worked as a student employee. Christensen is now pursuing a master’s in Library & Information Science at The University of Arizona.

Yaqui artist Augustine Fernando Lopez, a Photography/Video/Imaging graduating senior, presented his project “The Silent Distress” (photo, above) in regards to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG), and boarding school epidemics, on Dec. 8 the CESL Auditorium. A reception followed in the Arizona State Museum lobby. Watch the presentation

Amanda Lipp, an Art History major, was named the Outstanding Senior for fall 2022 by the entire College of Fine Arts and the School of Art. The undergrad student, who minored in Art and Visual Culture Education, earned accolades for her research into the Mexican talavera jar (photo, above) and the history of all-women art exhibitions. “This is the kind of research practice we expect of our grad students,” Professor Stacie Widdifield said. Read Story

Ryann Squires was named the spring 2002 Outstanding Senior for the School of Art and College of Fine Arts. From her nomination letter, “Ryann is the finest art history undergraduate major the current faculty has had the pleasure of teaching and mentoring in recent memory. Professor Paul Ivey affirms she has the potential to be one of the best of visual scholars of her generation. Ryann has shown an exemplary commitment to social justice issues, especially LGBTQ+, women’s rights, and civil rights, displayed in nearly every research paper she has written and in her extracurricular activities.” More details

Grad students Napur Sachdeva and Meghan Hipple organized the 10th annual “Emerging Conversations,” for the school’s Art & Visual Culture Education program. This year’s event, Nov. 3-5, featured nearly 30 speakers with the theme, “(Un)framing Borders: sharing knowledge across boundaries of art, visual culture and education.” More details and Photos.

Senior Erika Tenorio saw one of her designs chosen by the university’s Indigenous Cats Association to mark Indigenous People’s Day on Oct. 10. Tenorio, who hails from three indigenous cultures, read the Land Acknowledgement at the Pima County Board of Supervisors’ Nov. 15 meeting. Tenorio, a double major in Studio Art Illustration and Latin American Studies, is honoring her heritage and grandmother with her art. Read story

MFA student Jacqueline Arias, an artist and filmmaker, saw her short documentary, “Panama Narratives,” featured in the Arizona Underground Film Festival on Sept. 18 at The Screening Room downtown. Read story 

MFA candidate and illustrator Woodlin Latocki had only just begun to dip her toes in the world of animation when she was approached to animate the next Wonder video for the University of Arizona brand campaign. Latocki used rotoscoping – tracing over live-action footage frame-byframe — to make School of Dance alumnus Taylor Bradley’s performance video come to life in animation, earning a Creative Achievement Award.

Grad students Jacqueline Arias and Mariel Miranda were selected by the Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry as awardees for the Border Lab Graduate Fellowship program, made possible with funding from the Office of the Provost and University of Arizona HSI Initiatives. This program aims to advance the mission of the Border Lab initiative, an effort to develop the university’s U.S. and Mexico borderland studies and research. “With the support granted by this fellowship I will be able to activate a series of science fiction workshops at Tijuana in the neighborhood where I grew up and lived in since 1993,” said Miranda.

Amber Coleman, a doctoral student studying art and visual culture education, was committed to sharing the kinds of stories that too often don’t get told. Coleman worked on passion projects illustrating the histories of Tucson’s Dunbar school and the Buffalo Soldiers as part of her role as a student developer with the Center for Digital Humanities.

K. Lynn Robinson, a third-year PhD student, was selected from a list of distinguished graduate students as a recipient of the 2022-23 Dr. Maria Teresa Velez Diversity Leadership Scholarship. This award is given annually to a doctoral student at the University of Arizona who has demonstrated a commitment to furthering diversity in education, higher education, and the community at large. Read story

Molly Kalkstein, Ph.D. candidate in art history and the Marti and Ed Slowik Curatorial Intern, curated a gallery in the UAMA exhibition “The Art of Food: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation” which featured the entire exhibition “A Book Like Hundred Flower Garden: Walasse Ting’s 1¢ LIFE.”

BFA students Grace Rhyne and Ellenor Spenser were selected to design a mural as part of a national team competing in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Solar District Cup. The mural is part of an on-going Solar Commons Project with Professor Ellen McMahon and alums Dorsey Kaufmann and Karlito Miller Espinosa. The community research project aims to bring solar energy to underserved populations.

Artist and educator Anupam Singh joined the 2021-22 cohort for the prestigious University Fellows program. Singh is a PhD student studying Art History and Education with a focus on Art and Visual Cultural Education. Prior to Tucson, Singh was teaching English.

The school welcomed first-year student Emily Miu in the fall. Miu received scholarships after attending the @visionsteens program offered by @scottsdalearts. “The scholarship opportunities I gained from this program made me change my major in college and goals for my academic future,” Miu said. More details

Lauren Paun, who graduated in the spring with her BFA in Art & Visual Culture Education (emphasis on Community and Museums) and 3D Art, was a student employee in the School of Art for two years, working with social media accounts. More details

Adri Boudrieau, a triple major in Art History, Classics and Anthropology, was named the College of Humanities Outstanding Senior of spring 2022. More details

Collaborations

• In the 2022 Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition, graduating MFA students presented their work at the Joseph Gross Gallery and University of Arizona Museum of Art from April 16 to May 14, with a reception on April 21. The students:

• Students in instructor Jonathan Marquis’ ART 380B class held their exhibition, “The Place of Painting,” at the Lionel Rombach Gallery from Nov. 9 to Nov. 22. Students were Fatema Abizar, Joseph Barraza, Krysta Ellis, Linda M. Garcia Escobar, Julie Fan, Rachael Huffman, Sophia Laing, Jon Savarese, Ana Paula Monobe, Erika Elizabeth Moreno, Isabel Orozco-Anguiano, Casaundra Rodriguez, Gracie Thomas and Allisen Warner. More details and Photos

• Prof. Marcos Serafim’s Fall ART 349 students producedDE/COMPOSITIONAL LOGIC on Dec. 8 at The Loft Cinema — a free screening of selected works from Artists’ Video 2022. The students were: Lizzie Bell, Kimberly Calles, Mckenzie Campas, Amber Cole, Dietz, Ary Frank, Tucker Grams, Kendall Grant, Stuart Kieren, Stasia Mazza, Yesenia Meraz, Tanya Robles, Quinn Standley and Ariana Valencia. De/compositional Logic included bursts of delirium, ambiguous explorations of feeling and perception, altered physical and mental states, and expositions of the alluring, decomposing pollution of the capitalist spectacle. What follows is the possibility of engagement with the moving image as a critical tool, as an extension of our mind-bodies, and as a subject that impacts culture.

• Prof. Nicole Antebi’s Fall Animation 1 students worked on several projects, including a character turnaround and xxxxxxxx. The students were: Truman Adams, Kayla Bradshaw, Kiana Chan, Isaac Davis, Isabella DeFine, Kaya Glasner, Rene Harter, John Konrad, Malaquias Palacios, Madai Palacios, Alisha Stadler, Jihye Tak, Saedi Wadman and Maya Wong.

• FASO, an exhibition created for Grad Critique, led by Prof. Lawrence Gipe, held its reception on Nov. 18 at the Graduate Gallery. Student artists: Student artists: Austin Caswell, Galen Dara, Drew Grella, Tessa Laslo, Deborah Ruiz, Vanessa Saavedra and Mehraveh Vahediyan.

• Prof. Nicole Antebi’s spring motion arts students were so enthralled by the ants during their class visit to Biosphere 2 that they created a short film, “Who Put These Ants in my Biosphere?”. The animated film is shown from the perspective of an ant colony exploring Biosphere 2 and was screened at The Loft Cinema for the School of Theatre, Film & Television’s Magic Hour. Eight motion arts students were then selected to dive deeper into focused animation work that reflects Biosphere 2 and Arizona Institutes for Resilient Ecosystems and Societies (AIRES) research through a Science in Motion 2022 Summer Residency in Animation. Students included Caroline Berkey, Andrea Flores, Sharon Grumbles, Ashley Gutierrez, Danielle Hunt, Kat McGee, Robin Silverman and Gabe Spencer.

• Featuring 135 works by 65 students, the BFA exhibition March 14 to April 5 was the first in-person show in the renovated Lionel Rombach Gallery and refreshed Joseph Gross Gallery in three years. The show, which takes place annually each spring semester to highlight the work of the school’s BFA studio and AVCE undergraduates, had its reception on March 31. See photos: Series 1 and Series 2 and Series 3 and Series 4 and Series 5.