Oscar Magallanes
Day in the Life
“Growing up I was always intellectually curious, but also hardheaded. I was always questioning things when what I was being taught in school didn’t match my reality. At UCLA, that questioning has been welcomed, and my experiences have been welcomed.” Oscar Magallanes, B.A. Candidate, Department of Art
When Oscar Magallanes began his first year as an undergraduate student at UCLA, he had already been a practicing artist for a decade. But he knew that in order to make it as a serious, professional artist, he needed to complete his degree, something that was not part of his reality as a teenager in the Azusa barrio in Los Angeles County. While other kids were being prepped to go to college, his parents were trying to keep him alive and out of jail.
Oscar Magallanes' work in his studio
His education at UCLA’s Department of Art transformed how he viewed himself as an artist as he became confident in a variety of mediums and as his work developed a broader range: “I had to break the work down and unpack what it was that I was doing and understand why I was creating what I was creating within this larger context of art rather than just being a successful artist within my community,” he says. “I was now existing in a much larger art world, getting feedback from people like Lari Pittman, or Barbara Kruger, or Phil Chang, which was amazing.”
Oscar Magallanes, The Destruction of Destruction (triptych), 2015, 120”x60”, acrylic and aerosol on canvas
Oscar wants stories like his to be the rule, not the exception. He hopes that more individuals from similar backgrounds will be afforded the opportunities that he has received as a student at UCLA. “There’s so much drive in our local communities…There should be more opportunities for people who have such great talent to have a quality education – to be able to go to a university like UCLA and really flourish.”
Please consider supporting students like Oscar with a gift to the department or to the Dean’s Fund for Excellence, which supports students across the entire School of the Arts and Architecture. Your generosity will count towards UCLA’s ambitious Centennial Campaign to support the next 100 years of excellence.