Alumni Spotlight: December 2021
UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture alumni from all four academic departments – Architecture and Urban Design, Art, Design Media Arts, and World Arts and Cultures/Dance – and from our Visual and Performing Arts Education minor – submitted updates about their work and accomplishments since graduating from UCLA. This column features their achievements, awards, publications, and other honors, as well as upcoming events related to their work.
Upcoming Exhibitions and Performances
Refik Anadol’s "Machine Hallucinations—Coral Dreams (2021)" was part of an exhibition by the NFT marketplace Aorist at Miami Beach.
Refik Anadol ‘14 (M.F.A., design media arts) created “Machine Hallucinations: Coral,” a 40-by-40 foot video installation that features abstracted imagery of coral reefs based on AI data, that was installed on the beach at Miami Art Week 2021.
Judy Chicago '62 (B.A., art) and '64 (M.A., art) is currently presenting "Judy Chicago in Glass" at Nina Johnson Gallery in Miami, FL through Jan. 15, 2022. The exhibition "Judy Chicago: Childbirth in America" is on view at Through the Flower Art Space in Belen, NM through April 2022.
were-:Nenetech Forms, a group exhibition on view at MOCA Tucson, involves three UCLA Arts alumni: artist rafa esparza ‘11 (M.F.A., art), curator Laura Copelin ‘09 (B.A., art), and assistant curator Alexis Wilkinson ‘09 (B.A., world arts and cultures). In addition, artist Amina Cruz ‘23 (M.F.A. candidate, art) is part of the exhibition. The exhibition, which is centered around migration, transformation, and modes of survival in the Sonoran Desert, is on view through Feb. 27, 2022.
Danielle Eubank ‘91 (B.A., design) and ‘94 (M.F.A. design) is a Los Angeles-based artist whose solo exhibition of paintings, “Boundless,” will be on view at Pamela Walsh Gallery in Palo Alto, CA from Dec. 11, 2021 to Jan. 22, 2022. Eubank is widely known as one of the foremost painters of water. “Boundless” is a series of paintings that push further into thoughts of abstraction and introspection. In her newest compositions, ripples undulate across the surface of the canvas without boundaries or limits.
EJ Hill ‘13 (M.F.A., art) and Sharon Hayes ‘03 (M.F.A., art) participated in Prospect.5 New Orleans, a citywide contemporary art triennial, which is on view through Jan. 23, 2022.
Robert Glenn Ketchum ‘70 (B.A., design) participated in “Clay, Silver, Ink: Sun Valley Center at 50,” celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in central Idaho’s Wood River Valley, where Ketchum helped to develop their first photography workshop programs.
One of the images from his “Mandalac Gardens” series was included in an exhibit at the Booth Western Art Museum entitled “Recent Treasures: Acquisition Highlights.”
“CVNRA #125 (a toxic waterfall in a national recreation area)” hangs in an exhibition of paintings entitled “America As Landscape” at The Amon Carter Museum of American Art.
In 2022, the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska will display some of his Tongass rainforest photographs in their exhibit “The Nature of Waste: Material Pathways, Discarded Worlds.”
3B Collective, "Bueno, Bonito, Barrato 3 (2021)," mixed media on panel, 96 x 48 inches
Oscar Magallanes ‘17 (B.A., art), Alfredo Diaz ‘16 (B.A., art), Aaron Estrada ‘16 (B.A., art), Gustavo Martinez ‘15 (B.A., art), and Michael Khosravifard are members of 3B Collective, which is composed mostly of members that met during their undergraduate studies in art at UCLA and have since worked on various public artworks along with site-specific installations and murals, two of which have been for UCLA. The collective’s first Los Angeles exhibition “Highways & Byways” at Residency Art Gallery in Inglewood runs through Dec. 18. Stories about the show and about alumnus Oscar Magallanes have appeared in the Los Angeles Times and UCLA Newsroom.
"Houseguest: Shadows Fall Down." Curated by Monica Majoli. Installation view, Hammer Museum. Photo: Joshua White
Monica Majoli ‘89 (B.A., art) and ‘92 (M.F.A., art) curated the fifth exhibition of the Hammer Museum’s Houseguest series, titled “Shadows Fall Down,” for its analysis of themes such as melancholy. The show is on view through Jan. 2, 2022. Majoli also curated “Andy Warhol: Lifetimes,” at the Aspen Art Museum, which is on view through Mar. 27, 2022.
Neil Mendoza ‘16 (M.F.A., design media arts) will have a solo show at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art from Aug. 5, 2022. His work, “Robotic Voice Activated Word Kicking Machine,” is on view at the Da Vinci Museum in Milan, Italy through Nov. 18, 2022. He will also be speaking at the OFFF Festival 2022 in Barcelona in May 2022.
Gwynn Murrill ‘72 (M.F.A., art) will have a solo survey exhibition of sculptures in wood, bronze, ceramics, and marble at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA.
Daniel Norell ‘06 (M.Arch II), has two projects representing his practice Norell/Rodhe included in the group show “Architectures of Transition” at Bildmuseet in Umeå, Sweden. The exhibition presents Nordic architects and projects that, in various ways, represent a shift in contemporary architecture. The exhibition is up through Apr. 3, 2022.
Paul Mpagi Sepuya, "Studio (0X5A5038)," 2020
Paul Mpagi Sepuya ‘16 (M.F.A., art) is currently showing work in “The Hamilton Public Art Project” at University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA through Dec. 10; “Queer/Dialogue” at Grinnell College Museum of Art, Grinnell, IA, through Dec. 12; “Young, Gifted, and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art” at Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago through Dec. 12; "Portals" at NEON Foundation, Athens, Greece through Dec. 31; “Between” at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI through Jan. 23, 2022; "Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography," at Fotomuseum Antwerp, Antwerp, Germany through Apr. 13, 2022; and “Black American Portraits” at LACMA in Los Angeles through Apr. 17, 2022.
Sepuya will show work in "A Través" at James Cohan, New York, NY, from Jan. 14 - Feb. 19, 2022, and "The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today” at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. from Apr. 30, 2022 - Feb. 26, 2023.
Jesse Stecklow '14 (B.A., design media arts) presents a new exhibition, "Components in the Air," at Bainbridge House in Princeton, NJ through Jan. 2, 2022.
Karen Stokes ‘92 (M.F.A., dance) is professor and director of the dance program at University of Houston, and is artistic director of the non-profit Karen Stokes Dance. Her current artistic project is “Mapping & Glaciers,” an evening-length dance theater work about maps.
Kristina Wong ‘00 (B.A., world arts and cultures) founded the Auntie Sewing Squad in March 2020, a volunteer group of mostly Asian American women who made face masks for health care workers, farm workers, incarcerated people and others. This work inspired her new comedy at New York Theater Workshop, “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord,” a one-woman show about running a sewing group during the pandemic. Performances run through Dec. 14, 2021. The New York Times reviewed the show.
Awards
Millennium East Village in Santa Monica, CA, designed by Michael W. Folonis, FAIA
Michael W. Folonis, FAIA ‘94 (M.Arch) continues to receive honors for design excellence for his Millennium East Village (MEV) project in Santa Monica, CA, developed by The Dinerstein Companies. The project has won a total of five awards so far: AIA Los Angeles Residential Architecture Award for Large Built Multi-Residential (2021); Westside Urban Forum WUF Awards for Mixed-Use Built (2021) and Unbuilt (2015); AIA San Fernando Valley Design Awards for Mixed-Use Built (2020) and Unbuilt (2019). The awards acknowledge Michael W. Folonis Architects’ balanced and scaled transformation of an abandoned mobile home park into a community-oriented, five-story, 362-unit mixed-use complex with both market-rate and affordable housing.
Lauren Lee McCarthy '11 (M.F.A., media arts), an associate professor of design media arts at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, has been named a Sundance Institute interdisciplinary program grantee and an “Art of Practice” fellow in the field of emerging media. McCarthy also received the 2021 United States Artist Fellowship.
Patrick Tighe '93 (M.Arch), founder of Tighe Architecture, was recognized at the 2021 American Architecture Awards for 2300 Beverly, a multi-family housing project in Los Angeles.
Positions
Terry Whitt Bailey ‘89 (M.A., dance) currently serves as consultant for the Indiana Arts Commission and as co-chair for the Indiana Legislative Arts Advocacy Council.
Anthony Barbir ‘10 (B.A., dance) has been serving as deputy director of Silkroad for the past two years. Barbir says that his time there “has included rebuilding the organization from the ground up in service to leveraging its artistic output for social impact outcomes. I've stewarded the organization through the recovery of a $1M deficit and raised $5M during a global pandemic, reframed our institutional priorities to focus on systemic allyship with historically marginalized communities through the active practice and implementation of anti-racist principles, and brought in the amazing Rhiannon Giddens as our new artistic director.”
EJ Hill ‘13 (M.F.A., art) is Occidental College’s 2021-22 Wanlass Artist in Residence.
Eugene J. Hutchins ‘96 (B.A., dance) was named Managing Director for Theatre West in Jan. 2021 and continues to be the Executive Director for Altadena Arts. At Theatre West, Hutchins has already secured more than $250,000 in funding from grants and donations to allow the theatre company to reopen and produce a season of four theatre productions. And at Altadena Arts, Hutchins has commissioned 12 artists to create new artistic works, piloted a new arts education residency that highlights the art and life of Charles White, and produced the Altadena Arts Festival at Charles White Park that presented 12 visual artists, five eclectic musical ensembles, and six poets in a full-day event.
Marcia B. Leventhal ‘65 (M.A., dance) was named president-elect of the American Dance Therapy Association in 2021 and received the group’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.
Meleko Mokgosi ‘11 (M.F.A., art) has been named 2021-22 Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. Mokgosi is an associate professor at the Yale School of Art, where he serves as co-director of graduate studies in painting/printmaking.
Daniel Norell ‘06 (M.Arch II), of the architectural practice Norell/Rodhe, was invited to teach and lecture in the annual Porto Academy summer school at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, Portugal. The Academy gathered 12 lecturers and workshop leaders from around Europe from Jul. 20-27, 2021.
Paul Mpagi Sepuya ‘16 (M.F.A., art) will be artist-in-residence at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center from Apr 18 - May 1, 2022.
Brendan Sullivan Shea ‘10 (B.A., architectural studies) was appointed Research Fellow at The School of Architecture (formally The Taliesin Fellowship) alongside Teaching Fellow Noémie Despland-Lichtert. Shea & Lichtert's collaborative practice Roundhouse Platform is dedicated to investigating cycles of change in architectural production and engaging the perception, documentation, and preservation of site-specific histories. Growing out of interests from their travels across Arizona, Nevada, California and Texas, their fellowship research at TSOA/Arcosanti will focus on developing experimental site-derived modes of representation and fabrication, activating archives and prototypes of alternative models of urbanism, and studying the peripheral infrastructural development of Maricopa County on the occasion of its 150th anniversary.
Projects
American architects Paul Andersen and Paul Preissner curated the U.S. Pavilion project "American Framing" at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale, which explores the history of softwood as a building material in America.
Paul Andersen ‘01 (M.Arch) is an architect and co-curator, with Paul Preissner, of the U.S. Pavilion show "American Framing" at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale. The show's topic is wood framing and includes a four story addition to the pavilion, a history of wood framing in scale models, and commissioned photographs and furniture.
Jonathan Bobrow ‘08 (B.A., design media arts) created Blinks, which the Los Angeles Times 2021 gift guide called “downright enchanting." Bobrow says the new game system was inspired by his UCLA professor and mentor, Casey Reas. Blinks is an open-source platform that anyone can design a game for; while Blinks starts with 9 games out of the box, there are now more than 30 user-created games available.
Kristel Brinshot ‘08 (B.A., design media arts) is the creator of Big World NRG. Brinshot describes it as “a hybrid creative coaching program designed for the BIPOC Artist & Creativepreneur. It is the first of its kind designed to target burnout and imposter syndrome. The program starts in 2022 and open enrollment runs Dec 1-Jan 1st. Space is limited: open to all alumni, recent grads, and students currently launching a small creative business.”
Christina Curlee ‘19 (M.F.A., media arts) is a designer at Insomniac Games and produced the game “Ratchet and Clank” this year. They were the main designer for the Ardolis level and the Spiderbot and Glitch missions. Curlee is now working on “Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart” and “Spiderman 2.”
David Echt ‘80 (M.Arch) is an architect who recently completed a facility for Exodus Recovery in Vista, CA. It is an interior renovation of a tenant space in an existing commercial center. Exodus Recovery partners with local governments to assist them in treating people with mental illness and drug addiction.
David Familan ‘86 (M.F.A., M.A. art) is artistic director/curator at the Beall Center for Art + Technology at the University of California, Irvine, and is in the research phase for the Getty Foundation’s “Pacific Standard Time: 2024” initiative.
Edward J. Ray Hall at OSU-Cascades in Bend, OR, designed by Carl Hampson, AIA
Carl Hampson, AIA ‘94 (M.Arch II) led two recent projects as design principal for SRG Partnership in Portland, Ore. Edward J. Ray Hall will provide a new learning environment for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math on the OSU-Cascades campus while creating a vibrant student hub with active interior and exterior spaces. And, at the University of Washington Medical Center Northwest Campus, a new six-story building will be a fully integrated welcoming and healing environment for individuals struggling with both physical and behavioral health conditions.
"Catch the White Dot" is an interactive digital world that invites you to collectively interpret and document our lives during the COVID-19 lockdown with the help of a little white dot.
Manojna Katte ‘17 (M.Arch II) collaborated with filmmaker Deepti Rao and won the Amsterdam Funds for the Arts’ Corona Futureproof grant in 2020 to complete “Catch the White Dot,” a digital art project born during the COVID-19 lockdown. “Catch the White Dot” is an immersive game-based environment that invites the public to collectively reflect on their lives, emotions, and thoughts during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Nadia Khan ‘98 (B.A., art) founded Nadia Home Design during the pandemic. She builds benches, console tables, side tables and other tables out of reclaimed wood. She is now working with designers, high-end boutiques and vintage stores to sell the tables.
Cort Lane ‘92 (B.A., design) is the executive producer of “No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics,” a documentary that premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and recently won the Outfest grand jury prize for documentary feature.
John Luebtow ‘69 (M.A., art) and ‘76 (M.F.A., art), a glass artist who creates large-scale commissions around the world, delivered this talk in 2020 for PBS-affiliated Craft In America Foundation about his 55 years of working in glass. He also recorded this video summarizing the process of creating “Ventus Vitae,” a glass fountain in Century City.
Michael Pickoff ‘19 (M.Arch I) has founded Echo Projects, a general contracting and design firm based in Los Angeles, specializing in architecturally rigorous residential construction. Their process is informed by extensive experience in architectural design and custom homebuilding, and they leverage the skills and tools from both to execute projects characterized by careful, legible refinement.
Antonio Rael created this hand-painted 18' x 22' mural for VH1 and World of Wonder Productions celebrating RuPaul's Drag Race's Emmy nominations. Rael (center) poses here with the winner of Season 13, Symone, and runner-up Kandy Muse. Photo by Emilia Garcia, courtesy of Antonio Rael.
Antonio Rael ‘86 (B.A., art) created a mural for VH1 and World of Wonder Productions celebrating the Emmy nominations for the reality competition TV show “RuPaul's Drag Race.” The mural was up for a week near Melrose and La Jolla.
Yuriko Romer ‘79 (B.A., art) has received a grant from the National Parks Japanese American Confinement Sites for the documentary film “Baseball Behind Barbed Wire,” which will tell the story of the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans, through the uncommon yet popular lens of baseball, America’s national pastime. Romer plans to release the film in 2022 as part of the 150th anniversary of the arrival of baseball in Japan.
Jesse Silver ‘75 (B.A., art) works in television animation for Warner Brothers, and is currently supervising color on season 3 of “Harley Quinn” on HBO.
Damon K. Sperber ‘93 (B.A., world arts and cultures), an actor, has upcoming appearances in Apple TV's “The Morning Show,” Hulu’s “The Dropout,” and Amazon’s “Daisy Jones and The Six.”
Irem Uygur ‘20 (M.Arch II), has founded a VR company with a San Francisco-based entrepreneur. The company is called VR Neighborhood and they are working on a product for architectural clients to experience their homes in the design process. They are looking to advance the industry of architectural visualization to a level of life-like experience by putting the users into the project using VR with physical interactions, interactive games and multiplayer features for them to meet up with their friends and family. They are now in the process of securing investors.
Vanessa Verdoodt ‘06 (B.A., world arts and cultures) opened a new studio space in the heart of historic West Adams, Los Angeles, in October. PiYoDa Flow is a non-competitive family friendly space for dance, wellness, fitness and culture.
Regina O'Brien Wronske ‘86 (B.A., art) is a set decorator in IATSE Local 44 and worked on the television show "The Dropout" on Hulu.
Brenna Youngblood ‘06 (M.F.A., art) participated in an art-themed sneaker release from Vans in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. Along with artists Judy Baca and Frances Stark, Youngblood transforms the Authentic and Classic Slip-On silhouettes through colorful and 3D prints that references the assemblage often used in her work.
Brian Yung ‘19 (B.A., design media arts), who is part of Warner Music Asia's regional creative team, produced the visuals for “Visiting Butterflies,” a series of multimedia installations across Asia created in celebration of Ed Sheeran's new album “=.” Inspired by Sheeran's use of different butterflies to represent each track on the album, the installation features a swarm of butterflies taking over an iconic location at night, creating a one-of-a-kind visual experience for fans and passersby alike. Over the course of a week, Yung and the team launched site-specific installations in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Manila and Jakarta, strategically placed at each city's cultural hotspot. From video projection, to a water screen, to a 360° LED globe, the visual experience was tailored to each site and each medium in order to maximize viewer impact and create local buzz.
Publications
"Jungalow: Decorate Wild" is Justina Blakeney's latest design book.
Justina Blakeney ’01 (B.A., world arts and cultures) is the founder of Jungalow and author of the 2021 book “Jungalow: Decorate Wild.”
Kelly Bowen ‘90 (B.A., world arts and cultures), is currently finishing edits to her first novel, while also announcing the publication of a short fiction piece called “The Controller” in “Bards and Sages Quarterly.”
William Hefner ‘81 (M.Arch I) has published “California Homes II,” a monograph that showcases eleven homes built in the last decade that showcase California style, spanning contemporary to traditional and city to country estates.
Gretchen McNeil ‘97 (B.A. Visual and Performing Arts Education Program) will publish her eleventh novel, “Dig Two Graves,” a queer YA take on “Strangers on a Train,” on Mar. 29, 2022 from Disney*Hyperion
Arami Walker ‘16 (B.A., world arts and cultures) has published “Poems Intransit,” a collection of poetry and illustrations that focus on the transitions of nature, society, and family.
Sarah Wilbur ‘12 (M.F.A, dance) and ‘16 (Ph.D., culture and performance), an assistant professor of dance and director of graduate studies in dance at Duke University, published “Funding Bodies: Five Decades of Dance Making at the National Endowment for the Arts” (Wesleyan University Press, 2021). This book, Wilbur writes, is “the first history of the NEA to focus expressly on dance, and grew out of provisional research on the relationship between arts funding and dance organizational practice conducted during my time in World Arts & Cultures/Dance. Due to a Mellon Foundation grant supported by the Duke Libraries, Wesleyan University Press has made a free open-access e-book available to all. Here is that link (PDF).
HEADER IMAGE: Danielle Eubank, "Southern Ocean X," Oil on linen, 42x50 inches, 2021.
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