California College of the Arts will present its 2011 Graduate Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition from Thursday, May 12, through Saturday, May 21 (10 a.m.-7:30 p.m. daily), with an opening reception on May 12 from 6 to 10 p.m. The exhibition features works by the nearly 50 artists graduating this spring from CCA’s MFA program. The presentation unfolds throughout CCA’s San Francisco campus, giving visitors an opportunity to tour most of the college. The exhibition and opening reception are free and open to the public.

The artworks address a wide range of subjects, from personal histories to pop culture and social change. The show is organized by faculty member and critic Glen Helfand. “CCA’s MFA exhibition is a lively, multidisciplinary showcase of works by the next generation of creative thinkers and makers emerging from the school’s Graduate Program in Fine Arts,” Helfand says. “The 2011 edition is particularly rich with works in painting, sculpture, digital and handmade photography, and installation that explore conventions of web-based culture, cinema, theater, literature, computer games, historical documents, science, karaoke, and the colorful outer reaches of the imagination.”

Selected Artist Profiles

Sarah Hotchkiss’s work is concerned with the NASA space program and the large-scale expectations for the future it engendered. “I feel like I showed up to the party too late,” she observes. She plans to hang several text banners from the archways in the large central area of CCA’s main building, visually referencing decorations for office parties and classrooms, and evoking what she calls an air of institutional depletion.

Victoria Deblassie is building an eight-by-six-foot room with a barrel-vaulted arched roof whose walls, door, and ceiling are all made of orange peels, intricately sewn together. The room references orangeries (greenhouses for growing oranges), while the orange rinds themselves represent a part of her personal history. A goal of her work is to “use the orange’s history as a springboard for a sensorial experience.” She explains, “A room made from orange peels engulfs the viewer in a visual, tactile, and olfactory experience that only this material can produce: the warm glow of the skin, the irregularities of the rind’s surface, and the fresh, fleshy aromatics of organic acidity.”

Sita Bhaumik says her work is like the love child of Edward Said and Willy Wonka. She explains her inspirations as “things that are smart, compelling, creative, fun, and a bit bonkers.” Her piece will be a culmination of two years of work with a creator of perfumes as well as extensive personal research on the cultural meaning of smell.

Carol Koffel will be presenting a site-specific installation that involves suspended porcelain pieces. She describes her work as “inspired by generative thinking. The immersive space is structured to invite reflection and exchange through improvisational play. It offers an experiential walk through real, imposed, or imagined boundaries affected by notions of risk, safety, interdependency, and cognitive dissonance.”

Mik Gaspay references a variety of pop-culture icons from throughout history (Star Trek, the baseball player Ted Williams, ginko trees, Paramount Pictures) in his high-finish installation pieces, which engage the viewer’s senses by distorting sound and space.

About California College of the Arts

Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts (CCA) is noted for the interdisciplinarity and breadth of its programs. It offers studies in 21 undergraduate and seven graduate majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. The college offers bachelor of architecture, bachelor of arts, bachelor of fine arts, master of architecture, master of arts, master of fine arts, and master of business administration degrees. With campuses in San Francisco and Oakland, CCA currently enrolls 1,850 full-time students. Noted alumni include the painters Nathan Oliveira and Raymond Saunders; the ceramicists Robert Arneson, Viola Frey, and Peter Voulkos; the filmmaker Wayne Wang; the conceptual artists David Ireland and Dennis Oppenheim; and the designers Lucille Tenazas and Michael Vanderbyl. For more information about CCA, visit www.cca.edu.

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE

California College of the Arts presents the
2011 Graduate Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition
Exhibition dates: May 12-21, 2011, open 10 a.m.-7:30 p.m. daily
Opening reception: Thursday, May 12, 2011, 6-10 p.m.
Location: CCA San Francisco campus, 1111 Eighth Street (at 16th and Wisconsin)
Free and open to the public
/calendar/2011/2011-mfa-show-opening

PRESS CONTACT: Brenda Tucker 415.336.7528 btucker@cca.edu

PUBLIC CONTACT:
Images and interviews with the artists are available upon request.

Visit cca.edu/finearts to view an online catalog of student work.