Manetti Shrem Art Studio

Open Inquiry: UC Arts brings together emerging artists from the University of California’s leading art programs at UCLA, UC Berkeley, and UC Davis for a group show at the Sausalito Center for the Arts. Featuring current students and graduates from the past two decades, the exhibition highlights innovative, research-driven practices across painting, sculpture, installation, performance, and digital media.

Professor emerita Gina Werfel is featured in the group show Alchemies of Place at the Col Gallery in San Francisco.

Seongmin Yoo’s (M.F.A. ‘24) latest exhibition at the Dougherty Station Community Arts Center Gallery brings together new sculpture, paintings, and a performance that reflect her continued exploration of movement, transformation, and the relationship between place and identity. Spirit Made Visible will be on view at the Dougherty Station Community Arts Center in San Ramon to Feb. 1.

“Temporary Home,” an exhibiton curated by Professor Beatriz Cortez at the Galka Scheyer House in LA, was selected by Hyperallergic among the best exhibitions around the world for 2025.

Alum Kelly O’Leary (M.F.A. ‘22) has received a 2025 Art Bae Award. Kelley will use this award to complete her Mars ventifact project: turning uncanny rover photographs into aluminum prints as well as 3D-printed sculptures, bringing the full series to exhibition scale.

Professor Beatriz Cortez, writer Elena Salamanca and artist and writer Olivier Marboeuf explore the political agency of artistic forms in relation to the spectral resonances in Central America, the Caribbean, and their diasporas in a conversation with curator Patricio Majano. “Haunting History: Ghosts of the Unresolved in Contemporary Central American Art” will take place on Friday, Nov. 28 at 6 pm (UTC/GMT or 9 am PST) at the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid.

In “Stacked Artifacts,” Professor Darrin Martin presents an exhibition of remixed archival video and sculptural works which explore the dynamics of media and memory with particular attention to queer histories. Reflecting on the past in light of the present, Martin grapples with loss and change, and the struggle to situate these histories in the broader assemblage of reality.

In her new solo show “4 Meters,” Professor Beatriz Cortez explores how everything is in a process of transformation: flowing, moving, changing, and falling apart. Cortez regards the sinking of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City as a metaphor for impermanence.

Maria Manetti Shrem Art Studio Assistant Professor Fidencio Fifield-Perez has received a strong review in Art Forum for his recent exhibition at the  Commonwealth and Council in Los Angeles.

Maria Manetti Shrem Art Studio Professor Shiva Ahmadi has a solo exhibition called “Fables of Fire and Water” at the University Art Gallery at California State University, Stanislaus,  which runs through Dec. 19. Ahmadi will be giving a talk in conjunction with the exhibition on Nov. 6 at 6 p.m. 

Maria Manetti Shrem Art Studio Professors Robin Hill and Annabeth Rosen are in the exhibition “Making Moves, A Collection of Feminisms,” curated by Francesca Wilmott and Sara Morris, at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento on view from Nov 2, 2025 – May 3, 2026.

Professor Shiva Ahmadi has received a Career Achievement Award in Art, Art History, and Design from Wayne State University. The award is granted by the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts to celebrate outstanding alumni career achievements. 

In 2003, Ahmadi received an M.F.A. in Drawing from Wayne State University, a few years after her family immigrated from Iran to the United States. Wayne State was the first school she attended as a new immigrant and had a profound impact on her life and artistic career. 

Alum Robert Ortbal (MFA, art studio, ‘89) will have a solo exhibition, Encounters, at the Pence Gallery in Davis opening on Oct. 10. Running through Nov. 30, the installation includes video, costume, and sculpture from several of his recent series of exhibits.

Alum Jessica Wimbley (MFA, art studio, ‘05) was among the 10 artists who contributed work to “Love, Leimert,” a love letter to Leimert Park in Los Angeles, which presented moving-image artworks in a diverse range of styles and subject matter.

The public art project used archival images, Super8, animation and collage; the artworks celebrate the cultural vibrancy of Leimert Park and the surrounding neighborhoods. The public art can be viewed as part of Metro Art, Leimert Park Station, Los Angeles, CA…”Love, Leimert.”

The art studio graduating class of 2026 from the Maria Manetti Shrem Art Studio Program and the San Francisco State University School of Art present “Solve et Coagula,” a two-part exhibition showcasing works created during the first year of each institution’s M.F.A. program. Part two, “et Coagula,” opens on Thursday, Oct. 2. Both exhibitions are located at SWIM Gallery in San Francisco.