Brandon Vergil
Attendees inside the Stan State Art Space.
Stan State’s Art Space in downtown Turlock is celebrating the talent and dedication of Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) graduates with its annual exhibition, on display through May 23.
The exhibition opened May 8 with a reception and artist talk, where attendees received catalogs featuring the artists, their creative visions, and selected works.
At the event, Dean de Cocker, Director of the Art Space Main Gallery and faculty member in the Art Department, welcomed guests and introduced the evening’s program. Art Department faculty and staff then honored each graduating BFA student, presenting them with their own catalog and inviting them to introduce their work developed over the academic year.
The exhibiting BFA graduates include:Alex Cobain, Amora Ilene Cruz, Zehl Day, Carlos Rodriguez Diaz, Cesar Flores, Ryan Galloway, Madeleine Guevara, Fatima Gutierrez, Elizabeth Hernandez, Riddick McCoy, Lesley Mijangos, Dimenka Miranda, Andrea Amador Molina and Melissa Parga.
The exhibition presents a diverse range of work—including painting, sculpture, multimedia and conceptual art—highlighting the individuality and scope of each artist’s practice.
One attention-grabbing piece, “Lived Life Experience (Metal Up Your Ass)” by Riddick McCoy, features a metal rod moving up and down through a cutout chair seat. According to the exhibition catalog, McCoy uses “horrific and grotesque imagery as an instrument to embrace the absurd, explore texture, and create a document of [his] own thoughts, jokes and fears.”
Also featured is a solo exhibition by Fatima Gutierrez titled “Homenaje a la Memoria” (“A Tribute to the Memory”), which explores the complexity of remembering and the fear of forgetting. Gutierrez blends painterly techniques with spatial construction to document fleeting memories through abstract, layered compositions.
The BFA exhibition runs through May 23 at the Stan State Art Space, open noon to 5 p.m. For those interested in viewing the Bachelor of Arts graduating student work, a reception will be held May 15 in the University Art Gallery inside the Theatre Building.