Student Art Exhibitions, Events, Gallery Openings for Fall Semester

An artist’s art project is an expression of what the world looks like through his or her eyes and mind. For those who then view it, it is an invitation to examine what they see, to understand where the artist is coming from, to learn and reflect.

That’s sure to be the case for the art exhibitions and events taking place on the University of San Diego campus this fall. From Art, Architecture and Art History Department (DAA+AH) students' summer works to alumni-spotlighted visual arts projects on display and discussed during Homecoming and Family Weekend, senior thesis exhibits, guest speakers and inspiring USD campus exhibitions, there’s plenty of options.

Fall Semester Exhibitions, Events

Summer Undergraduate Research exhibitions by DAA+AH students Stanley Ryan, Nina Montejano and Isabel Gonzalez take place at differing times in the Visual Arts Center Gallery in Sacred Heart Hall Room 102 through Oct. 5.

Ryan’s project, “Crash,” which ran from Sept. 5-14, featured an extensive installation that filled the gallery space with a large armature for a steel track in which balls descend to create a chaotic and overpowering soundstage. The intention with Ryan’s project was to create an embodied experience for the viewer, who will explore the work as they follow the path of the balls through the track and take notice of how the soundscape shifts relative to their movement.

Montejano’s “Made You Look” project is described as being large-scale graphite drawings portraying peculiarities within the details of seemingly ordinary scenes. Inspired by Dutch Golden Age painters, set designers and realists, the drawings bring together dramatic lighting and careful placement of objects and figures to create a quiet tension between the familiar and unfamiliar. Montejano’s project will run from Sept. 24-28.

Gonzalez’s “Looking for America” exhibition, slated to show Oct. 1-5, is a short film about the everyday struggles and triumphs young people in the United States face in 2018. It examines social, environmental, political, cultural and racial issues present in America. It follows characters of various backgrounds and ethnicities to show the viewer different perspectives on life in America at this time.

Alumni will return to campus, providing an opportunity to learn from them and see where they’ve taken their artistic talents since graduation. There will be an alumni exhibition from Oct. 8-19 in the Visual Arts Center Gallery in Sacred Heart Hall, Room 102. An exhibition reception happens Friday, Oct. 12 from 4-6 p.m. during USD’s Homecoming and Family Weekend. Another Homecoming-connected event will be a Beyond the Basement: Visual Arts Alumni panel discussion Oct. 12, 2:30-4 p.m. in Camino Hall, Room 07. Then on Oct. 23, there’s an Art History Alumni panel discussion at 12:15 p.m. in Founders Hall’s French Parlor.

Current students in the DAA+AH senior thesis class will have their work displayed in Camino Hall, Room 29 from 3-5 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 26.

Guest speakers are important for development of USD students, too. On Sept. 17, Patty Chang, a Los Angeles-based artist working in performance, video, writing and installation, was the Stone Family Distinguished Lecture Series speaker at the Warren Auditorium in Mother Rosalie Hill Hall. On Oct. 22, 6 p.m., in Camino Hall’s Architecture Pavilion, Mimi Zeiger, a Los Angeles-based critic, editor and curator, will speak on her work, which is a blend of architecture and media cultures. She’s co-curator of the U.S. Pavilion for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale and has covered art, architecture, urbanism and design for numerous publications.

University Galleries Exhibits

Here’s a snapshot of fall exhibits at the Hoehn Family Galleries, KIPJ Fine Art Galleries, David W. May American Indian Gallery and Humanities Center Gallery.

Hoehn Family Galleries (Founders Hall): D.Y. Cameron: Mystic Beauty and Sacred Space, Sept. 28-Dec. 7. This exhibition represents the first time that the career of legendary Scottish artist, Sir. David Young Cameron (1865-1945), has been surveyed in depth in California. For most of the first half of the 20th century, Cameron was among the most celebrated British printmakers in the world. Over 50 works, including etchings, drawings, watercolors, photogravures, and oil paintings by both the artist and close contemporaries comprise the exhibition. A majority of these works are taken from the strong permanent collections of USD, with select loans from private individuals augmenting this unique presentation. Opening Reception is Sept. 27, 5-7 p.m. 

KIPJ Fine Art Galleries (Located behind the IPJ Theatre): Love is the Measure: Photos of Dorothy Day by Vivian Cherry, Oct. 12-Dec. 14. Dorothy Day has been called “an icon of American Catholicism.” Born to a newspaper family in Brooklyn, N.Y., Day converted to Catholicism as a young woman and shortly afterwards began publishing the Catholic Worker in 1933. In the midst of the Great Depression the publication became a widely-recognized vehicle for promoting social change and awareness of poverty in the U.S. Vivian Cherry, a street photographer known for her interest in social issues, chronicled Day’s work starting in 1955. Cherry returned in 1959 to photograph Day’s faith-inspired labor. Almost 50 of Cherry’s images from these extended photo-essays are in the exhibition. The project has been organized by the France G. Harpst Center for Catholic Thought and Culture and University Galleries. The show is accompanied by an illustrated, scholarly brochure, authored by CCTC Director Jeffrey Burns. Opening celebration is Oct. 11 with a 5:30 p.m. discussion with Kate Hennessy in Copley Library's Mother Rosalie Hill Reading Room and a 6:30-7:30 p.m. reception in the IPJ Garden of the Sea.

David W. May American Indian Gallery (Serra Hall): Matika Wilbur: Project 562, Nov. 9, 2018-May 3, 2019. A member of the Swinomish and Tulalip tribes (Washington), Matika Wilbur has been photographing contemporary Native Americans as part of an epic documentary undertaking she has named Project 562. When completed, Project 562 will include representations of members of all 562, and more, federally recognized, sovereign tribes throughout today’s U.S. Since 2012, Wilbur has been traveling throughout the country in an RV, called “Big Girl,” recording voices and faces of indigenous peoples. Her photography aims to respect, humanize and resist the idea of “vanishing races” that has pervaded historical narratives surrounding Native American portraiture since the late 19th century. The May Gallery presentation includes more than a dozen of Wilbur’s recent works, concentrating on portraits she has been making of individuals in the Southwest. Wilbur will also deliver the third annual May Distinguished Lecture in Native American Culture at USD in May 2019.

Humanities Center Gallery (Serra Hall): Screenings 2: Joan Perlman, Sept. 5-Oct. 18. Los Angeles-based artist Joan Perlman has long been fascinated by the stark visual beauty of Iceland. Perlman has visited the remote, island nation for over two decades. She has exhibited widely and been awarded multiple grants and residencies in the United States as well as in Iceland. Although she is perhaps best known for her large-scale, atmospheric landscape paintings that conjure Iceland’s unusual geological character, Perlman’s most recent projects have been in digital media — primarily video done in collaboration with various sound artists. These works consider the fragile ecological balance that surrounds Iceland in our era of climate change. Her beautifully composed, quietly absorbing works will be shown in succession in the Humanities Center Gallery, the second installment in the new series of multi-media displays entitled Screenings. Opening Reception is Oct. 1, 5-7 p.m.

Humanities Center Gallery (Serra Hall): The Printed Word: Textual Play in Contemporary Art, Oct. 29-Dec. 14. This exhibition draws on the strength of USD’s growing print collection to examine recent tendencies to explore the printed word. Roughly a dozen works in a variety of graphic media — etchings, lithographs, screen prints and woodblocks — demonstrate the visual power of words as images. Featured artists include Raymond Pettibon, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Davi Det Hompson and Kay Rosen.

— Compiled by USD News Center

Photo slideshow credits: First, Jane Blackmen, Pala Band of Mission Indians © Matika Wilbur 2018; Second: Ila May Dunsweiler, Quechan Tribe © Matika Wilbur 2018; Third and Fourth: Dorothy Day (detail), c. 1955, © 2018 Vivian Cherry; Fifth: D.Y. Cameron, Ben Ledi (detail), 1911, etching and drypoint; Sixth: Joan Perlman, video still from Break, 2016, HD digital video with sound, 4:37, 16:9 ratio.