2020 Commencement Ceremony
Wednesday, May 13 | 2pm
Virtual event
Program Welcome
Pam Rorke Levy, Chair, Board of Trustees Jeff Gunderson, Adjunct Faculty and Librarian and Archivist
Student Awards
Presented by Jennifer Rissler, Vice President and Dean of Academic Affairs
Student Speakers
Lex Calip, MFA Studio Art Christopher Williams, MFA Studio Art Cardamom Bloom, BFA Sculpture David Welch, BFA Art + Technology
Faculty Speaker
John J. Priola, Senior Lecturer Director Low-Residency MFA, Photography
Honorary Degree
Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Nao Bustamante and Catherine Opie
Awarding of Degrees
Reception
Jennifer Rissler
Graduates and their guests are invited to a reception following the Commencement Ceremony including an intermission by SFAI TV, a tour of the BFA and MFA exhibitions online, an exploration of digital campus built in partnership with Matterport, presentations by MFA graduates on their work, and LIVE presentations by BFA graduates.
Class of 2019 Bachelor of Arts Seraphina Lorenz Perkins / HCA
Bachelor of Fine Arts Christian Aguilera / NG Shaikha Al Salman / FM Alise Anderson / NG Hector Barajas / PA Josefina Marie Beto / PA Gregory Blanche / PA Faisal Bokhari / PH June Li Borgese / AT Danette Bouzanquet / FM Sam Burghout / PA Katerina Camejo / PR Anika Chasuk / FM Hongzhu Chen / FM Yoonjae Cho / PH Lorena Ciccia Roncalla / NG Samantha Companatico / PR Kale Cooley / SC Cardamom Bloom / SC Adrian Del Riego / AT Madison Dion / PH Alexander James Dungan / PH Alexandra Ehmer / PR Delaina Engberg / PA Julia Fairbrother / AT Blythe Feeney / SC Ashlyn Forbes / FM Ben Gasta / NG Samantha Marie Gripe / SC Ragsdale Growden / AT Kamal Jahi / NG Tianhu Kang / PH Minjun Kim / AT Kira Kishi / NG Anton Kuehnhackl / PH Trishna Kumar / PH Michael LaRocco / NG Sanghun Lee / PH Yi-Hsuan Lee / PA Yana Liu / PA Ning Polly Liu / PA
Yuying Lily Lyu/ PA Nivedita Madigubba / PA Michael Martinez / PH Mabel Meza / PH Hannah Modesitt / FM Nona Elena Morales / PA Christian Morales / PH Trevor J Murphy / PH Lennart Nelson / AT Hannah Fhaye Oliver / PH Kaycee Kaleo Phillips / FM Anguo Ping / PA Alex Adine Rodriquez / NG Michael Sarago / FM William Jacob Schempf / PA Nikolas Schumann / PA Jusun Seo / PA Qi Shen / PA You Jin Sim / PA Bobby Singer/ SC Ami Sioux / IN Abigail Soule / FM Robert Spanbauer / FM Ren Spears / PA Ellen J. Strecker / PA Nikos Sueuga / PA Natalie Samantha Thompson / PA Avery van der Steur / FM Vivian Vivas / FM Kristi Walker / SC Si Dong Wang / SC Ye Wang / PA Gong Weike/ SC David Hollis Welch / AT Isabelle Rosalie Wilhelm / PH Jinming Ye / SC Grace Young / PH Eric Zhang / PH Mike Zhou / PA Tera Rose Zuniga Miller / PH
Post-Baccalaureate Rachel Dean / SA Rebecca Emmerich / SA Arthur Hilfiger / SA Tamara Khasanova / SA
Shinta Angelina Lauw / SA Fangying Lu /SA Barbara Lea Sharp / SA Jasmin Viducic / SA
Master of Arts Yang Bao / EMS Blanca Bercial GarcÃa-Bayllo / HCA Merve Sahin / HCA
Master of Fine Arts Taylor Ann Berry / SA Cyd Bown / SA Kat Brown / SA Lex Sanchez Calip / SA Becca Chacon / SA Henry Chambers / SA Sang Chi Liu / SA Karl Eero Daum / SA Samuel De Lemos / SA Colleen Donovan / SA Luis Flores Martinez / SA Christa Grenawalt / SA Katherine Ray Hanover / SA Imani Maryahm Harrington / SA Jesse Yunho Kim / SA Ryan Golden Kirkpatrick / SA Sae Yong Lee / SA Jiazhen Li / SA Chen Lyu / SA Sera Mac / SA Katrina Magowan / SA Kyle Martin / SA Jeffrey Carter Maylath / SA Shara M Mays / SA Mareiwa Miller / SA Laura Pacchini / SA James X Patterson / SA Evan Pettiglio / SA Monica Pimentel Coelho / SA Collin Pollard / SA Joanna Ruckman-Gallegos / SA Eleanor Dawn Schnarr / SA Sequinette / SA
Rebecca Mae Sexton / SA Yan Shao / SA Annupreet Sidana / SA Collin McEachran Smith / SA Miles Stemp / SA Mimi Vitetta / SA Angela Weber / SA Eve Johanna Werner / SA Christopher Adam Williams / SA Lena Tseabbe Wright / SA Jiaxing Wu/ SA George Xiong / SA Hansen Yang / SA Leyi Yang / SA Jane Yuan / SA Zahra Zaremehrjerdi / SA Mengjiao Zhang / SA Yourong Zhao / SA Yawen Zheng / SA
Master of Arts + Master of Fine Arts Sophia Cook / SA Samantha Cutrona / SA Giuliana Maria Funkhouser / SA John James Hartford / SA Whitney Joanne Payne Humphreys / SA T Shell / SA KEY
AT Art and Technology DT Design and Technology FM Film NG New Genres PA Painting PH Photography PR Printmaking SA Studio Art SC Sculpture EMS Exhibition and Museum Studies HCA History and Theory of Contemporary Art
HONORS + AWARDS Art + Technology Outstanding Undergraduate Student Minjun Kim
Film Outstanding Undergraduate Student Michael Sarago George Kuchar Award Sequinette (Lauren Kistler) Jack Schafer Prize for Art
Paul Sack Building Awards - Color 1st Place: Anton Kuehnhackl C. David and Mary Robinson Photography Scholarship Grace Young
Printmaking Outstanding Undergraduate Student Samatha Companatico Alexandra Ehmer Bronze Roller Award Whitney Humphreys
Supplies Weihao Wang
New Genres
Painting
Outstanding Undergraduate Students
Outstanding Undergraduate Student
Lorena Ciccia Roncalla Alise Anderson
Jusun Seo
Jusun Seo
History + Theory of Contemporary Art
Hart Lipton Art Supplies Prize
Outstanding BA Award
Jusun Seo
Seraphina Lorenz-Perkins
Robert Howe Fletcher Cup Honor
Hector Barajas Ivan Majdrakoff Art Materials Award
Sculpture
Nivedita Madigubba Ellen Strecker
Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award
Ye Wang
Alise Anderson
Marguerite Bradley
Harold E. Weiner Memorial Fund
Delaina Endberg
Award
Nona Morales
Ragsdale Growden (Blue)
Kennedy Morgan You Jin Sim
Isaac M. Walter Sculpture Prize
Samual Prater-Bellver
Blythe Feeney
Kayla Suavillo
Cardamom Bloom
Photography
Outstanding Student for Excellence in Sculpture and Services
Outstanding Graduate Student Collin Pollard (MFA)
to Humanity
Outstanding Undergraduate Student
The Leap Prize
Keisha Kidd
Robert Singer
PhotoAlliance Service Award “Hoon” Sanghun Lee Yeting “George” Xiong ( MFA)
Sarah Becker and Yucky Yencken
Nivedita Madigubba
Other Awards
Colleen Donovan (MFA)
Outstanding Undergraduate Academic Achievement Award
Paul Sack Building Awards - B&W
Vivian Vivas
1st Place: Isabelle Wilhelm
Recognition of Academic Achievement Alexander Dungan
Anne Bremer Memorial Library’s 34th Artist’s Book Contest Winners
Nivedita Madigubba
Lex Calip
Michael LaRocco
Colette Standish
Blythe Feeney
Blanca Bercial
Julia Fairbrother
Olivia Dorrance
Student Alliance Award Undergraduate Faculty
Lena Wright
Cristobal Martinez
Colin Fleck
Art Hazelwood
Seraphina Perkins
Orit Ben-Shitrit
Winnie (Gwenyth) Smith
Elizabeth Travelsight
Ellen Strecker
Student Alliance Award Staff Alex Peterson Gabriel Penfield Chris Paddock Undergraduate Student Leadership Award Keisha Kidd Maggie Bacon - And all Student Alliance Student Recognition Award Chris Williams Sang Chi Liu Olivia Nogueira-Wheaton
Rising Leader Award Alex Dungan Virgil Williams Prize for Outstanding Leadership Raven Kemp Headland Center Residency Lena T. Wright Anne Bremer Memorial Prize Lexygius Calip Excellence in Scholarship Master of Arts Thesis Awards Blanca Bercial García-Bayllo Whitney Humphreys
Younhee Paik Award Shara Mays
Yourong Zhao
Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Recipients
Nao Bustamante Nao Bustamante is an internationally recognized artist, residing in Los Angeles, California. Bustamante’s precarious work encompasses performance art, video installation, filmmaking, sculpture, and writing. She has exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the New York Museum of Modern Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Sundance International Film Festival/New Frontier, Outfest International Film Festival, El Museo del Barrio Museum of Contemporary Art, First International Performance Biennial, Deformes in Santiago, Chile and the Kiasma Museum of Helsinki. She was also an unlikely contestant on the Bravo network’s show, “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist.” In 2001, she received the Anonymous Was a Woman fellowship and in 2007, was named a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow, as well as a Lambent Fellow. In 2008, she received the Chase Legacy Award in Film and was the Artist in Residence of the American Studies Association in 2012. In 2013, Bustamante was awarded the (Short-term) CMAS-Benson Latin American Collection Research Fellowship and also a Makers Muse Award from the Kindle Foundation. In 2014/15 Bustamante was Artist in Residence at UC Riverside and in 2015 she was a UC MEXUS Scholar in Residence in preparation for a solo exhibit at Vincent Price Art Museum in Los Angeles. Bustamante’s video work is in the Kadist Collection. Bustamante is an alumna of SFAI, New Genres program, and the Skowhegen School of Painting and Sculpture. Currently she holds the position of Professor of Art at the USC Roski School of Art and Design. There, she also serves as the Director of the MFA in Art.
Catherine Opie Catherine Opie is an artist working with photography, film, collage, and ceramics. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States and abroad and is held in over 50 major collections throughout the world. Opie was a recipient of The Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019, The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art Medal in 2016, The Julius Shulman Excellence in Photography Award in 2013, and a United States Artists Fellowship in 2006. In September of 2008, the Guggenheim Museum in New York opened a mid-career exhibition titled Catherine Opie: American Photographer. Recent projects include a permanent photographic installation for the new Los Angeles Federal Courthouse in 2016, and her book, 700 Nimes Road, a portrait of Elizabeth Taylor, was published by Prestel in 2015. A large survey of Opie’s work opened at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Norway in 2017. She debuted her first film, The Modernist, at Regen Projects, Los Angeles in 2018, and her exhibition titled Rhetorical Landscapes is currently on view at Regen Projects through June 20, 2020. Opie received a BFA from SFAI, and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1988. She is the Lynda and Stewart Resnick endowed Chair in Art and Professor of Photography at UCLA.
Exhibitions
MFA Exhibition Online: sfai.edu/mfaexibition On View: May 15 - June 207
BFA Exhibition
Online: sfai.edu/bfaexhibition On View: May 15 - June 20 A campus-wide virtual exhibition featuring multi-disciplinary works by graduating Bachelor of Fine Arts students
History
Since its establishment in 1871, San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) has been a dynamic laboratory for experimentation in the fine arts and a driving innovative force in the Bay Area. As a diverse community of working artists and scholars, SFAI provides its students with a rigorous education in the fine arts and preparation for a life in the arts through an immersive studio environment, an integrated liberal arts curriculum, and critical engagement with the world.