This series is housed in the College of Letters and Science and
organized by the Department of Art and Art History studio faculty
and Master of Fine Arts studio art candidates.
Public lectures are at 4:30 PM and are free and open to the
public.
Lectures will be held primarily in the Community Education Room
at the Manetti Shrem Museum, UC Davis, unless otherwise
noted.
One of the nation’s most acclaimed photographers, LaToya
Ruby Frazier’s work depicts the unsettling reality of
today’s America: post-industrial cities riven by poverty, racism,
healthcare inequality, and environmental toxicity. By featuring
voices and perspectives traditionally erased from the American
narrative, Frazier not only captures our cultural blind spots,
she teaches us how art is a powerful tool for social
transformation.
Defying categorical restraint, Kyle Dunn
combines sculptural and painterly traditions, including
bas-relief and trompe l’oeil, to express the vibrancy of the
masculine emotional landscape not often represented in popular
visual culture.
Rita Gonzalez is the Terri and Michael
Smooke Curator and Department Head of Contemporary Art at the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art where she has
curated Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano
Movement; Asco: Elite of the
Obscure; Lost Line: Contemporary Art from
the Collection; Agnés Varda in
Californialand, In Production: Art and the Studio
System, Christian Marclay: Sound Stories,
among other exhibitions and programs.
Soo Sunny Park is widely recognized for her
sculptural light installations, which have been exhibited at art
institutions such as the North Carolina Museum of Art, NC;
Sharjah Art Museum, UAE; Rice Gallery, TX; DeCordova
Sculpture Park and Museum, MA; American Academy of Arts and
Letters, NYC; and Laumeier Sculpture Park, MO. An upcoming
solo exhibition of Park’s work will be held at the San Jose
Institute of Contemporary Art.
Growing up in Jim Crow South during the Civil Rights Movement,
Ramekon O’Arwisters had a safe haven,
quilting with his Grandmother where he was “embraced, important
and special.” These early memories prompted his nascent series
of unique crocheted/ceramic sculptures titled, Mending.
Employing ordinary household, or decorative pottery, broken and
discarded, O’Arwisters combined traditional crafts into a
dimensional woven tapestry, stripping both cloth and ceramic of
their intended function.
Through documenting contemporary activists focused on women’s
rights, migrant justice, workers’ rights and climate justice,
Andrea Bowers is committed to an intersectional
feminism that dismantles gender privilege and builds community
that collectively cares for one another. Her multivalent art
practice documents and honors the activists whose everyday
actions forge meaningful change. Bowers lives and works in Los
Angeles, Calif.
The materials employed in Arnold J. Kemp’s
interdisciplinary practice absorb or reflect light while
mirroring likeness, becoming haunted and ghostly metaphors for
absented and obfuscated black bodies. His work is in the
collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum
in Harlem, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and
the Portland Art Museum, among others.
Irina Rozovsky captures her contemplative,
cinematic photographs from dramatic vantage points and with a
deep sense of empathy. Her work highlights people and the
surroundings that influence them, ranging from scenes of
contemporary Israel to more personal moments with family in her
native Russia.
The Art Building is located on Hutchison Drive, about halfway
between the Memorial Union and Mrak Hall on the UC Davis campus.
There is limited parking behind the building, but there is
visitor parking nearby, across the Arboretum in lot VP5.
