Chaffey College and the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art proudly present Student Invitational 2018, the 41st annual juried exhibition featuring Chaffey College student artists. In this rigorous program, the selected artists work closely with faculty, the museum curators, and other art professionals to create a new body of work, culminating in a professional quality group exhibition at the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art.
Printed on the occasion of the exhibition Student Invitational 2018, April 9 – May 10, 2018 Chaffey College Center for the Arts 5885 Haven Avenue Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91737 www.chaffey.edu/wignall
Christian Cortez Raylene De La Torre Betsaida Jimenez Caleb Northway Auli Sinaga Aubriella Tash Erick Treto Maria Villanueva
Christian Cortez
Christian Cortez, Into the Void, 2018, archival pigment print, 68 x 44 inches.
As a gay cisgender male growing up with a conservative, strict father, the word concealment meant protection. My everyday life felt like a series of staged events to keep my sense of self hidden. Constant fear and rejection of my innate identity meant playing a role which placated my family but left me feeling unnatural and uncertain. I would hide my true identity in the shadows. My artwork is an embrace of the shadows I used to hide in. Photography, for me, is like a mirror that I use to explore a repressed sense of self identity that I am now free to explore. My photos try to look back to into my past self and re-capture, almost cinematically, an innocent, younger me who was at that time hidden. Through the use of self-portraiture, I direct myself subconsciously into immersive void-like scenes. I am spontaneous when making these images, but they do open up many questions about who I am, questions that my current self struggles to answer. Past generations of artists who have represented non-mainstream identity, artists like Robert Mapplethorpe, have paved the way so that my generation has the luxury of exploring many of the subtleties of our own sense of self. My work, in addition to examining my identity, also acknowledges a debt of gratitude toward this older group of artists. My hope is that I am an advocate for anyone else who experienced similar struggles with their sense of self and that my work may shine a light on some darkness and shadows in someone else’s life.
Raylene De La Torre
For me photography is a way to share how I view things. I try to show the beauty in objects and everyday items that are overlooked. I want the viewer to realize that there is more to what they are seeing than first meets the eye. In a way, I am attempting to change points of view and reveal a new perspective on something familiar.
Raylene De La Torre, Flor, 2018, archival pigment print, 24 x 18 inches.
I suffer from an eye condition, retinal degeneration, that impairs my vision in a way that forces me to slowly take in what I’m seeing. Photography, because of its’ ability to freeze time, is an assistant to my examination of the world. The camera is almost like another set of glasses that I use to look at things with more specificity and intensity. Photographs get close up and focus on minor details that may have been overlooked. I like to find those details with the camera. With the additional time to examine things I have photographed, I have more time to see slight imperfections or other details. I also use framing to cut into what I am photographing because I find it produces different shapes and spaces that stand out to me. I try to find a balance between the negative and positive space as it is seen through the lens of my camera. When I do this, I am paying careful attention to the shapes and shadows that contrast each other in the object. Because of this sometimes I even use a knife to slice through what I want to shoot, revealing other details of the light I am capturing. I often shoot in color but I chose to shoot this series in black and white to further simplify what the viewer is looking at. One of the many charms of flowers is the beautiful colors we find in them. I chose to eliminate color to further condense the intensity of their forms and unique features. In this way, we can see the beauty in what is less obvious about them. It has been asked of me “why flowers?” and I have thought carefully on why I do enjoy seeing them through a lens. I love that they are purely organic forms that exist totally out of my control. Their beauty is almost overwhelming and too much to take all at once. My work seems to cut them up into smaller details so that I, and my viewers, can enjoy them with prolonged sense of time.
Betsaida Jimenez
Betsaida Jimenez, Colony, 2018, enamel paints and ceramic glazes on ceramic, 18 inches.
Having only been involved with ceramics for a little over a year, I realize that there is still much for me to learn about the craft. My work with this medium has led me through a great many triumphs and pitfalls, teaching me patience as well as an appreciation for the raw potential of the clay. I am very fond of the delicate biomorphic sculptures of Lindsey Feuer, the nuanced works of CJ Jilek, and the intricate pieces created by Kodama Koromomi. Much like them, I find inspiration in biological life and the complexity of the forms that embody it. On a technical level, my work grows somewhat organically, hand built into forms that I feel reflect my sensibility. My process attempts to imitate natural processes and allows me to work somewhat instinctually. What I do can be described as unpredictable and nonprogrammatic. I enjoy working with the same kind of freedom that nature does. My work is also strongly influenced by long-held ecological concerns. The damage done to our oceans and other fragile ecosystems fills me with a terrible feeling of loss. Every scientific article I read and every documentary I watch about fungal life, about underwater life, and about our diminishing forests only helps to strengthen my convictions and fuel my artwork. My pieces, therefore, are a depiction of the hope I hold for life on our fragile planet. They are my own imaginings – based mostly on fungi and coral - of the life that could exist in some unseen beautiful future. I strongly believe that these life forms, both alien and beautiful to the human perspective, are destined to thrive in the aftermath of our relentless carelessness. It is for that reason that I seek to engage my audience in a conversation about the role that humans, as a collective, have played in the destruction of our fragile ecosystems. Even if it is not humanity’s place to inherit this planet, as our deep-set hubris has led us to believe, I think that other life will most certainly survive and even thrive in our absence. This is my greatest hope.
Caleb Northway
As a kid I read “Guardians of Ga’Hoole: The Capture” a fantasy book series by Kathryn Lasky about a civilization of owls with human characteristics who regulate and administer to a larger society of owls. I was an avid reader of this series. It helped a younger me grow in confidence, stimulated my imagination, and opened me up to many intellectual possibilities. In this sense, the books opened up a whole new world to me. My relationship to these books directly led me to painting because I wanted to visualize the world that they had created in my mind. In my early work, depictions of this Owl World definitely had a Surrealist look to them, though they are really fantasy paintings of a fantasy world. Like a film maker adheres to a story, I too tried to remain faithful in my paintings of the owls from the books. Over the years, I have had a lot of fun working this way but I have also begun to drift away from exclusively painting owls. I now paint many different Caleb Northway, Doe, 2018, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 18 inches. kinds of animals and I have become more interested in the properties of painting itself – specifically its magical properties of transformation. I have begun to move toward a more abstract form of representation, playing with the physicality of the medium to build new worlds. My current work process starts with a lot of notes surrounding the emotional and physical subject I plan on depicting in the painting. As strange as it may seem, I then make clay models of any representative animal or human forms used in order to accurately capture the forms from any particular angle I choose. I use these clay models when making thumbnail drawings and paintings as studies and the final artwork. The final pieces have a corporal form but at the same time they have been modified and look irregular. There is something sci-fi-ish in the way they look that I think relates back to my interest in the fantasy world of Ga’Hoole. These paintings have no relationship in terms of subject, but they do capture the same spirit of imagination that I found so interesting when I was young.
Auli Sinaga
Auli Sinaga, Idyllic, 2018, archival pigment print, 36 x 24 inches.
What makes us, us? For many people who are immigrants or have immigrant parents, our country of origin and the cultural heritage associated with it makes us, us. When I was younger I pretended I wasn’t Indonesian because I wanted to be an American, and do American things like eat steak and broccoli for dinner and go to the movies on Friday night. Instead, I was a brown girl who ate rice and sayur every day, wore batiks, and listened to Batak songs my parents put on. Although I carried the traditions we had in the back of my head, I distanced myself from the culture I had grown up within. As I grew up and matured, I realized that having different cultural backgrounds is one of the things that make different people unique. Cultural heritage doesn’t have to take up our whole identity but it is definitely a part of who we are. Most people make the effort to balance different parts of our identity because it is important to them. To some degree, this is almost a universal experience in the United States. Part of my particular cultural heritage can be seen through the lens of clothing. The Kebaya is a shiny, elegant piece of clothing. It is a traditional Indonesian, two-piece outfit worn by women during weddings and important celebrations. Most of the time, Kebayas are very colorful and have floral and striped patterns. Batiks are also traditional Indonesian wear, but it is worn by men and women. A Batik is more versatile, as they come in buttoned up shirts, blouses, dresses, skirts, or pants. I see this dress as a symbolic representation of my re-acceptance of my culture; a celebration of my return to something I rejected for much of my youth. In my work, I display the enjoyment and comfort I get from connecting with my roots through this specific piece of Indonesian clothing. This dress holds an enormous piece of my identity as an Indonesian woman.
Aubriella Tash
Being diagnosed with a mental illness was a life changing moment for me. One doesn’t really understand what it’s like until it’s a formal part of their life, or they’ve had some insight from someone who struggles with it on an everyday basis. There are so many negative stigmas surrounding mental illness, that society tends to outcast those who are not neurotypical. I think that it is important to show people what having mental illness is like, so they can understand it from a different point of view.
Aubriella Tash, from Mental Illness, Anxiety, 2018, charcoal on paper, 24 x 18 inches.
I mainly work in charcoal and graphite. I feel that it best expresses, in its intensity, much of the emotional charge of my interest in mental illness. I like to show the vulnerability in humans and show ideas that not everyone may want to see. I like the unlikeable. I make beautiful what others may find ugly or disturbing. Charcoal and graphite, specifically the range of values that they produce, work well with the kind of drama I’m interested in depicting. My current work is focused studies of the human face. The drawings exaggerate the vulnerability and emotion I’m looking for, conveying a sense of the strangeness of mental illness. I want each piece to be unique in its own way, but to play a role in a bigger picture, still fitting together in a series. Each drawing represents a specific mental illness but my aim is to convey some sense, in an almost textural way, of what each condition feels like. My concern here is less about clinical representation and more about the everyday weirdness of dealing with the sensations of mental illness. My work attempts to engage the viewer in a visual relationship with mental illness. My challenge is the reconcile the emotional content of my thoughts with the physical act of making art. I want viewers to see mental illness from the eyes of someone who is mentally ill and hopefully shed some light on the negative stigmas associated with it.
Erick Treto
Erick Treto, Wildfire, 2018, watercolor on paper, 22 x 32 inches.
I grew up in Fontana, California, which I believe served to nurture my desire to become an artist. There is a lot of graffiti where I live on the walls of warehouses and abandoned buildings, as well as the side of the freight trains that pass-through town. Although I’ve always liked to draw, I was never fully interested in art until I was a teenager. My mother occasionally dabbled in painting and she worked with acrylic paints in a style that I would describe as conventional. Although I thought her work was uninteresting, at the time, I believe that seeing her physically painting influenced me to do so as well. In a strange way, seeing my mother in the act of painting made it somewhat normal. I started doing pencil and ink drawings in an attempt to mimic the art that I enjoyed seeing. These were things like skateboard graphics, album covers and comics. My first efforts at painting were with acrylic paints, however I realized that I enjoyed working with ink and watercolors much more. Watercolors worked just the way that I needed them to, for the style that I was going for. I really enjoyed working with the transparency of the medium and the layering ability that comes with watercolors. When dark outlines are applied to images, there is a very graphic look that I find intriguing. I’m still not sure of exactly how my pieces come together. I have a very active brain and one thing I know for sure is that my work helps to distract it from all the noise going on in there. The stuff I’m working on now is an exaggeration of elements found in the natural form. These mutated figures create a humorous yet grotesque image. To create this series of images I think over certain topical social issues and implement them into my way of thinking. Basically, I will take a news story and use it as a subject for one of my pieces but once I have translated it into a watercolor, it has become distorted and abstracted from whatever it was originally about, and is now something totally new. It’s like making pancakes and using rocks as an ingredient: you get pancakes but they are a little crunchier.
Maria Villanueva
I was born in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico in 1995. I was brought to the United States at age 4 by my parents who were seeking better economic opportunities for their young family. Since their arrival, my parents have worked nonstop to provide their children with a better future. I have grown up as an undocumented resident of the United States. This has created a sense of Maria Villanueva, (Un)Documented, 2018, gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches. vulnerability and insecurity in me, it has created a caution that forces me to hesitate before I take any step forward in life. In my work, I photograph other DACA recipients from local areas within the Inland Empire. My aim is to create imagery that can make an impact on the way that society sees our predicament. I use photographs, and accompanying texts, to help other Dreamers speak up and tell their stories, fears, and anxieties. My work creates portraits that express ideas from a hidden part of American society. At this particular point in history, it is crucial that these voices are heard. I think it is important to share these stories, not keep them hidden, and let other understand what we are going through. Each photograph comes with an accompanying text written by the person portrayed. In this text I wanted the subjects to be forthright and honest, describing the issues confronting them as undocumented children growing up in the Inland Empire of Southern California. Each Dreamer has a unique story to tell and it is important to me to explore their feelings, along with mine, about our unique situations. Although I have found similarities in the stories of the Dreamers, there are differing points of view on how we see the current situation. One thing most of us have in common is a collective fear of sharing our status with close friends and almost everyone we know outside of our immediate families. Being able to share with each other, through this project, has created a sense of comfort and relief that has been very therapeutic for all of us.
QUESTIONS FOR VIEWING Artists often use personal history and information in their work as a starting point for their concepts. Select an artist that you believe does so and explain why you think they’re creating work influenced by personal history. Unlike most Wignall Museum exhibitions, the Student Invitational exhibition doesn’t present a unified theme to consider when viewing the works presented. However, there are often unplanned themes that link the work in this exhibition. Identify one theme that you can see and explore those concepts in a written work or verbal response. If you were the curator, what would you title this group exhibition? Why? Which artworks in the exhibition are most memorable? Why? Choose two artists working in the same medium and consider how their work uses the medium similarly and differently. Is there an artwork that is using its medium in a way you find unexpected? Consider why you feel surprised by the work. What do you expect of the medium and how is this different? Is there a work in the exhibition that you find challenging? Consider why you feel this. Read the artist’s statement to see if that provides insight that helps your experience. ESSAY PROMPTS Write a well-developed essay in which you compare and contrast two artworks in the exhibition. Analyze key elements such as the subject matter, composition, use of color, point of view, themes, etc. ACTIVITIES Tell a friend, classmate, teacher, or staff member about the Student Invitational exhibition. Invite him or her to view the exhibition with you. Which work of art should he or she definitely see? Why? Create an artwork inspired by a work of art in the exhibition that expresses your own point of view as a response to the artwork.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Institutional support for the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art is provided by Chaffey College, the School of Visual & Performing Arts, and the President’s Office. This exhibition and related programs are generously supported in part by the President’s Host Account. CHAFFEY COLLEGE GOVERNING BOARD Kathleen Brugger, President Gloria Negrete McLeod, Vice President Gary C. Ovitt, Clerk Lee C. McDougal, Member Katherine Roberts, Immediate Past President SUPERTINTENDENT/PRESIDENT Henry Shannon, Ph.D. ASSOCIATE SUPERINTENDENT INSTRUCTION AND INSTITUTIONAL EFFECTIVENESS Meridith Randall DEAN VISUAL & PERFORMING ARTS Jason Chevalier, Ph.D. FACULTY STUDENT INVITATIONAL, VISUAL & PERFORMING ARTS Mark Lewis DIRECTOR/CURATOR WIGNALL MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART Rebecca Trawick ASSISTANT CURATOR WIGNALL MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART Roman Stollenwerk PRINTING Chaffey College Print Shop
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