Spring 2022 Class and Faculty Notes

Judy Coates Perez, ’85 BFA Communication Design

Coates Perez’s art quilt Liberty Assaulted, made for the Threads of Resistance exhibit, has become part of the permanent collection of the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Coates Perez is proud to be one of the 10 organizers of The Threads of Resistance exhibit that traveled to 12 venues during 2017-2018 protesting the Trump administration. This historic exhibit had over 550 submissions from eight countries (in less than three months), with 64 pieces chosen for the traveling exhibit. For more information, please visit www.judycoatesperez.com.

Ann Gooding, ’87 MFA Fine Arts

Gooding is showing paintings in a two-person show, In gravity to one another, with sculptor Nicholette Kominos at LA Artcore Gallery. The show ends Sunday, April 24, 2022. For more information, please visit www.anngooding.com/.

Cindy Hron, ’87 BFA Fine Arts

Hron’s work is featured in the exhibition, The Nature of the Future: Artists Confront the Anthropocene, at the Leu Art Gallery in the Bunch Library at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Taking its title from Elizabeth Kolbert’s new book, Under the White Sky: The Nature of the Future, this exhibition features artists whose work addresses global warming and the changing composition of the natural world. These invite us to consider a “second nature” that humans have created, and they offer some insight into the precarious world in store for us as we enter a human-centered epoch that scientists and environmentalists are now calling the Anthropocene.

Other exhibiting artists include Vanessa Albury, Elijah Barrett, Brandon Bauer, Rachel Boillot, Diane Bronstein, Christine Carr, Patrick DeGuira, Brooks Dierdorff, Jenny Herrick, Stacey Kranitz, Colin Lyons, Manifest Data Lab, Ann Mansolino, Sarah Nance, Kelley O’Brien, Marat Paransky, Kaveer Rai, Tamara Reynolds, Lauren Ruiz, Solarpunk Surf Club, Debbie Symons, Russ Thompson, Kathleen Thum, and Kari Varner in addition to Cindi Hron.

The Nature of the Future is co-curated by three faculty members of the Watkins College of Art at Belmont University: Robin Paris, Christine Rogers, and Tom Williams, PhD. The exhibition runs through May 27, 2002. For more information, please visit cindihron.myportfolio.com.

Jonas Kulikauskas, ’90 BFA Communication Design, Illustration

Kulikauskas’s photographic series, Yosemite People, produced by Exhibit Envoy, will be exhibited at the Haggin Museum in Stockton, California from August 18-October 16, 2022. In 2021, Kulikauskas was the recipient of a Fulbright Award, conducting independent research and art in Vilnius, Lithuania from January through September, 2021, on the topic of the Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) community. For more information, please visit www.kulikauskas.com.

Ismael Soto, ’98 BFA Communication Arts

Soto is excited to announce his return to the arts after working in education for over six years. This month Soto joined the team at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, serving in a new and expanded role as the Vice President of External Relations and leading a team of development and communications professionals. Soto is excited about this new opportunity to build on the power of art to transform lives and communities through creating, teaching, and presenting the arts. Soto writes that his heart has always lived in the arts and this opportunity allows him to continue the work he has been destined to do. For more information, please visit Soto’s LinkedIn page (must be logged in to access).

Stefanie Anderson, ’05 BFA Fashion Design

Souvenir is a women’s ready-to-wear fashion brand inspired by Escapism that was founded by designer Stefanie Anderson after a much needed vacation and life changing event. She wanted to remember the importance of enjoying life once returning home. The label’s signature red tassel is a symbol of this reminder. Each piece is designed for the woman who enjoys it so much, they will keep it forever. The joyful fashion brand combines feminine silhouettes with unique embellishments. Luxurious fabrics and ancient handcrafts meet smile-inspiring colors and nostalgic prints. For more information, please visit escapetosouvenir.com/

Maria Laura Hendrix, ’20 MFA Fine Arts

Hendrix was featured in the exhibition Emergence at Studio Channel Islands Art Center (SCIART) in Camarillo, California this past February. Hendrix is a Mexican-born interdisciplinary artist, currently living in Southern California. She earned her MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2020, and her BA in Psychology from Cal State Northridge. In her thesis, titled Hasta La Raiz/To the Root, she created portraits, still lifes, and landscapes to link the themes of labor and privilege to narrate her history. She takes a closer look at labor as she links the painter’s hands with that of the laborer to show the shared similarities of both forms of labor with regard to job and financial precarity. For more information, please visit www.marialaurahendrix.art/. You can also follow Hendrix on Instagram, @mlhendrixart.

Javier Luna, ’20 BFA Product Design

Luna worked with a venture studio to put together the information portal, Political Fashion. Political Fashion is a website with content about the areas in which fashion and politics interact, such as sustainability and fashion, gender and fashion, political communication and fashion, symbols, and psychology and history of fashion. The goal is to think of fashion as a communication tool and a way to express oneself by understanding, respecting, and loving one’s clothes. New content posts every Friday at www.political.fashion/.

Maura Bendett, Foundation

Foundation faculty member Maura Bendett will be featured in the solo exhibition, Transport, at the Rory Devine Fine Art (rdfa) gallery. There will be an opening night reception on Saturday, April 23 from 6:00–8:00 p.m. Transport will be on display from April 23 through May 21 in the Main Gallery, along with John Souza’s solo-exhibit, Your God Isn’t God. For more information, please visit www.rorydevinefineart.com/maura-bendett.

Meg Cranston, Fine Arts

Fine Arts Chair Meg Cranston has an exhibition of new paintings on view at Meliksetian | Briggs gallery. Size, Shape, Distraction is the fourth solo show of Cranston's work in the gallery and continues her ongoing interest in themes of personal identity, the subjective, and their relationship to the broader culture by way of color theory, design, shared cultural references, and formal experimentation. Cranston’s paintings are characterized by their playfulness and wit, an entrance into her explorations of the nature of image making and the role the artist plays in our society. Size, Shape, Distraction is on view through June 4, 2022 at Meliksetian | Briggs, 313 N. Fairfax Avenue, West Hollywood, CA 90036.

Jacci Den Hartog, Fine Arts

Los Angeles-based artist and Fine Arts instructor Jacci Den Hartog has a solo exhibition with STARS gallery. For more than three decades Den Hartog has been working as an artist and educator in Los Angeles, exhibiting at some of the city’s legendary galleries such as Rosamund Felson and Christopher Grimes. Gilded Space is a presentation of new works by the artist with nine sculptures and seven works on paper. Considering sculpture as a primarily phenomenological medium, she focuses on her works’ ability to change the feeling of a space, to extend or augment it, to disorient one’s body in response. Reconciling with the masculine history of minimalism and thinking of sculpture as site rather than object, Den Hartog draws from the natural world, the urban landscape, and the meeting of the two. Gilded Space is on view through May 21, 2022 at SPACE gallery, 3116 N El Centro Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90028. For more information, please visit www.jaccidenhartog.com/.

Michele Jaquis, Interdisciplinary Studies

Michele Jaquis, Director of Interdisciplinary Studies, has work included in an upcoming group exhibition at SoLA Contemporary from April 21–May 14, 2022. SoLA Contemporary is pleased to present Migrant Madonna, a mixed-media group show curated by the mother-daughter collective MamaDotta. The exhibition brings together two collectives and eight artists who engage and transform the Madonna to reflect contemporary economic and social issues, commemorate and celebrate their family culture and history, and amplify the voices and experiences of migrant women today. In California, approximately 50% of the child population has at least one immigrant parent. The migrant experience and the narratives of diasporic people shape the culture of our state and our city. Migrant Madonna activates SoLA’s mission by making visible the lives of migrant people, issuing a call for empathy, humanity, and action. There will be an opening Reception on Saturday, April 23 from 3:00–7:00 p.m. SoLA Contemporary is at 3718 West Slauson Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90043.