PASADENA, CA — Spread across two buildings and showcasing a wide variety of media, the interdisciplinary and experimental nature of the ArtCenter College of Design’s graduate art program was on full display at its MFA Open Studios event. Perusing the hallways of the artists’ studios, attendees could take in everything from the technically impressive architectural photography of Zengyi Zhao to the crudely assembled materials-based sculpture of Andrea Nhuch.
One particularly impressive studio belonged to Shelby Drabman, whose text-based textile pieces carry an edgy, feminist bent and highlight her eye for color. Alongside her wall works, Drabman also presented a spread of handmade books and notebooks that she was launching the next day in the garden of Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles. Another artist experimenting with textiles was Meghan Sabik, whose studio walls were lined with dozens of handmade dolls propped up in front of photographs of a somber-looking female model whom I presumed to be the artist, in a sparse, white bed, the aforementioned dolls carefully arranged across her body. Set along the floor beneath large windows overlooking the street below, both the positioning of the photographs and the subject matter within them carry psychosexual undertones reminiscent of Mike Kelley’s early stuffed animal work.
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It seems slightly unfair to mention a couple of standouts, as they happen to be the lucky artists who had thesis shows up during Open Studios week. Artists Aussi Chen, Catherine Menard, and Daniel Wenger all put up impressive exhibitions in their respective galleries. Menard’s videos were particularly accomplished, especially an animation of a white female figure dancing alongside two red circles. An apparent fan of the theatrical, her large candelabra sculptures with actual lit candles were arranged in appropriately darkened rooms, producing delightfully intricate shadows on the walls. Wenger produced a variety of paintings, from the formally impressive “Unredacted Landscape (After Vuillard, For Annette Natanson)” to the aptly titled “Painting,” which features two simply drawn stick figures with heart ideograms between them — a humorous meditation on the entire point of art.
Although the artists in the program were a decidedly eclectic bunch, one commonality seemed to be an enthusiasm for text, either within the work or alongside it. In addition to Drabman’s handmade books, artist Madeline Ludwig-Leone included a pamphlet called Escape From L.A. next to her cartoonish landscape paintings, and many of the artists incorporated poetic writing and accompanying texts in their studios and exhibitions, apropos in a program whose professors include heavyweight critics such as Chris Kraus and Jack Bankowsky. Beyond this, however, the artists are obviously encouraged to follow their own creative paths.
Source: Hyperallergic.com