Class and Faculty Notes Fall 2022
What Otis College Alumnx Have Been Up to This Fall
1980s
Merrilyn Duzy (’88 MFA Fine Art)
Night Fire (Oil on canvas, 60 by 54 inches) by Merrilyn Duzy
Duzy was one of 24 artists included in Reflections on Our Warming Planet, a multidisciplinary group exhibition at Lois Lambert Gallery, in which artists, scientists, filmmakers, and community activists came together to celebrate the natural world, while calling attention to the climate crisis. The exhibition included painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography, as well as short films and documentary interviews. Duzy’s painting, Night Fire (above), was featured in the exhibition, which ran from July 16–September 3, 2022. More information can be found here. You can read more about Duzy on her website, and you can follow her on Instagram, @merrilynduzyart.
Jonas Kulikauskas (’89 BFA Communication Arts, Illustration)
From the series I Often Forget, 2021 (Silver gelatin contact print from 8 by 10 film), taken at the site of the Vilna Great Synagogue and Shulhoyf Research Project, Žydų Street, Vilnius, Lithuania (within boundaries of the former Vilnius Ghetto).
Kulikauskas had work and gave an artist talk as part of the exhibition, Yosemite People, at the Haggin Museum, which ran from August 18–October 16. You can read more about it here. He also will have a solo exhibition, I Often Forget, at the Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery at California State University, Los Angeles in June 2023. Of his solo exhibition, Kulikauskas writes: I Often Forget is a photographic project that confronts the historical omission of the Holocaust perpetuated by generations of Lithuanians worldwide. A World War II-era lens is fastened to a modern, 8 by 10-inch film camera to photograph life in what used to be the Vilnius Ghetto. Mundane scenes paired with site-specific historic descriptions explore ethnic nationalism, anti-Semitism, and cultural desecration, while provoking a haunting recollection of the 40,000 Jews systematically murdered.” For this collection of photographic works Kulikauskas was awarded a 2022 Puffin Foundation Grant for Photography.
2010s
Camille Alexandria (’16 BFA Fashion Design)
One of Alexandria’s gowns was featured on the cover of KCFW Magazine.
Alexandria recently showed her first solo collection for Kansas City Fashion Week (KCFW) last spring. KCFW paired with the CFDA Connects program to highlight independent and emerging designers in the fashion community. In addition, one of Alexandria’s gowns was featured on the cover of KCFW Magazine (above).
Some New Work by Otis College Faculty Members
Perri Chasin, CAIL and LAS
Perri Chasin, who teaches in both Creative Action and Liberal Arts and Sciences, recently had a piece, Ratner’s, appear in Amaranth Journal, an American/German publication on food and art, that can be read at this link.
Michele Jaquis, Interdisciplinary Studies and Artists Community Teaching (ACT)
American (a complicated mess), 2022 (Embroidery on altered American flag, 3 by 2 feet) by Michele Jaquis. (“It’s such a complicated mess” is a quote from the We Are All Americans podcast, season three, episode two. with Beverly Naidus).
Michele Jaquis, Director of Interdisciplinary Studies and the Artists Community Teaching Program, shared that she and fellow Otis College alumnx and faculty members have work included in the exhibition, Uncivil War (An Election Special), at the Torrance Art Museum, curated by Max Presnill. Other Otis artists featured include Sandow Birk (’88 BFA Fine Arts), who teaches in the ACT, Creative Action Integrated Learning (CAIL) and LAS programs, and Bruce Yonemoto (’72 MFA Fine Arts).
Exhibition description:
The events of January 6th, 2021 in Washington, D.C. shocked the nation. The country has felt a divided space with a polarization and demonizing of opposition that has left many citizens in fear that a spark could ignite the fires of civil war. There has been a steady build in journalist articles reflecting upon the possibility of a second U.S. Civil War. Regardless of the realities of this, the fact remains that this concern is a part of the current zeitgeist. What will the current midterm elections bring us? Increased enmity or a rejection of extremism? Will democracy win out or will armed insurrection begin? Or will the status quo continue to stoke the embers of discontent?
Other artists featured include Lisa Anne Auerbach, Diana Sofia Estrada, SC Mero, Jeremy J. Quinn, Dread Scott, Allison Stewart, Gabie Strong, and Keith Walsh. The exhibition can be viewed through December 10, 2022. More information can be found here.
Christopher Rowland, Otis Extension
Otis Extension faculty member Christopher Rowland worked as an editor on Face of a Nation, a documentary (above) that is currently airing on PBS stations across the U.S., about why the U.S. abandoned the World’s Fair. It was also recently mentioned in Smithsonian Magazine. More information about Face of a Nation can be found on its website, faceofanationmovie.com.
Yael Samuel, Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS)
Yael Samuel, who teaches in the Liberal Arts and Sciences department, recently had her book review of Train Music: Writing Pictures, by C.S. Giscombe and Judith Margolis, published in the Spring 2022 edition of Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, volume 40, by Indiana University Press. The review can be read on Proquest here.