Class and Faculty Notes Fall 2021

Noé Piña, ’98 BFA Fine Arts

Piña has had several works exhibited over the past several months. Illuminate, A Light on Asian Hate, was exhibited at Alhambra City Hall from August 2 to September 2, 2021. In this piece Piña contributed to the current and much-needed Stop Asian Hate movement by creating a public art installation that included the community. Piña asked several community members, friends, and family to participate by writing a statement about their relationship with an Asian friend, local business, or neighbor with whom they have had a positive experience. The goal was to transform the toxic energy of hate into that of love, to remove blinders, and listen to the humanity of others, especially that of Asian-Americans in our communities. The written statements were then printed on rice paper and affixed to paper lanterns. The objective was to encourage the audience/community to reflect on their personal experiences with the Asian community. Piña also was a featured artist at The Hindsight Exhibition at the Art Museum of The University of Memphis, focusing on the events of 2020, which ran from June 21st to September 30th, 2021. A recent sculpture, Take a Deep Breath, is on view at the Palos Verdes Art Center. The work is part of Now Trending, currently in its fifth iteration, which was created by Dr. O. Allen Alpay through the Beverly G. Alpay Memorial Education Fund and implemented by PVAC. For more information, please visit noepina.com.

Monica Magtoto ’09 BFA Digital Media

Magtoto has received her second individual artist grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission. Magtoto is excited to share her latest project, which will involve the creation and publication of an oracle divination deck. Magtoto has also recently worked on several large-scale murals, including the SoMa Pilipinas’ first mural for the Filipino Cultural Heritage District in San Francisco. For more information, please visit magtotoart.com.  

Aaron Philip Clark, ’10 MFA Writing

Aaron Philip Clark’s fourth novel, Under Color of Law, was released on October 1, 2021 from crime fiction publisher Thomas & Mercer and was accepted into the Amazon First Reads program, allowing Prime members to download it before release. The novel, set in 2014, centers on a rookie LAPD Detective tasked with solving the murder of a Black police academy recruit amid protests over the recent deaths of unarmed Black men by police. To learn more, visit aaronphilipclark.com.

Tryvon Harper ’20 BFA Communication Arts, Graphic Design

Harper has launched Black EXL, a design studio based in Los Angeles, CA. From the Black EXL website: “We were created out of necessity. With the recent racial injustices against people of color happening all over the world, we found it necessary that we create a studio that is focused on uplifting and celebrating the positive image of people of color that at times we don’t see in the mainstream media. Here at BLACKEXL you will be taken through a visual and creative journey to a place where Black excellence thrives and, on this stage, there are no dim lights because our excellence shines 24/7.” For more information, please visit BlackEXL.com. 

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Robert Creighton, Product Design

Creighton was the exhibit designer for the recently opened show at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, The Expressive Body: Memory, Devotion, Desire (1400-1750). The show examines the ways in which the human form has provoked powerful responses, from the physiological to the mystical. For viewers in the 15th to 18th centuries, these physical effects were assumed to be part of the experience of looking at and interpreting art objects. From erotic works produced for wealthy patrons to venerated statues of the wounded Christ in local chapels, representations of the body stimulated visceral and often self-reflexive reactions of desire, compassion or aversion.

Michele Jaquis, Interdisciplinary Studies and the Artists Community Teaching Program

Jaquis had two solo shows this summer: We Are Here, Together, a collection of multilingual, text-based drawings and embroideries, which was exhibited online at Proxy Gallery in June, and as part of the Window Dressing series at Cerritos College Art Gallery in September. Also, season three of Michele's podcast, We Are All Americans, recorded in Summer 2020, was released in Fall 2021. Episode one features Otis Foundation faculty Cole James; episode three features Otis BFA Fine Arts alumnx Marjan Vayghan; and episode five features Otis MFA Public Practice alumnx Yrneh Gabon.

Are you an Otis faculty who would like to submit a Faculty Notes update on what you’ve been up to? Please use this form!