The open art space at CSU Stanislaus recently hosted the exhibit, (Im)permeable by Mirabel Wigon. An exhibit created by Isabella Lopez was also being featured along side it.
Mirabel Wigon, a professor of art, is one of Stan State’s newer faculty members as she is in the process of completing her second year on campus.
This wasn’t her first rodeo, as she has has been able to put together multiple exhibits over the years, but it was her first one at Stan State.
“My whole body of work throughout my career has been all about my experience in my immediate environment,” she said.
She went on to say she would think about how she see’s herself or her body in a space and how she navigates that space.
“With that premise, all my work has essentially been about how I understand the world I navigate in,” Wigon said.
She referenced her time in graduate school and how her work was about industry and energy extraction because of her living in the port of Long Beach at the time.
She added that it made her consider how this massive infrastructure fuels city growth and her interest in how a person observes it. She also reflected on her transition from large metropolitan area to a place where you see big agriculture.
“What I’ve most noticed about this area is all the environmental phenomena and cataclysmic events,” she said. “We have the fires, we have the flood, we have it all here in the Central Valley and that was the impetus for the work.” 
Wigon’s newest exhibit (Im)permeable came together over the course of her first year at Stan State. 
She explained that we live in a mediated and curated world and our understanding of our environments are influenced by it. She added that we experience things first ourselves and secondly as people being informed.
Wigon wanted to answer the question of whether or not a painting can capture all these elements together. 
“I’m hoping that these paintings ultimately are getting you to consider that we’re at the epicenter here in the Central Valley with all these major issues and that we need to re-evaluate/re-negotiate our relationship with our environments,” Wigon said.
Jendayi Larios (senior, Studio Art) was in attendance to see Wigon’s exhibition at the art space.
“After hearing Mirabel’s artist talk tonight, I think the pieces communicate their message really well, creating beautifully vibrant apocalypses,” he said.
Larios was particularly impressed by one piece. 
“I’m especially drawn to Burnout because of its greenery-focus, but I could spend a long time looking at all of the pieces here,” he said. “The way they dynamically weaved different elements together, even texture, I feel like I’ll keep discovering something new.”
Wigon’s exhibit wasn’t the only art being hosted at the art space that day
Isabella Lopez (senior, Art) was also in the midst of presenting her first exhibition ever to the public. 
“I think it went better than expected,” she said. “The whole rush of having to throw it together in such a short amount of time was very stressful, but I’m glad everybody liked it.”
Lopez explained that she has always been making art since she was first able to use a pencil. She enjoys how the instructors nudge you along in the direction that you want to go.
Lopez said she likes to make things that bring joy to and happiness to people. 
“I want people to look at my art and feel warm inside,” she said. 
Lopez’s exhibit was made over the course of her academic career at Stan State. A majority of her artwork was previous class projects that fit her theme. Her theme being to insipre the importance on emotional connections to others.
Lopez explained that because of the pandemic we lost alot of those connections because of the isolation and now that everything is online she’s trying to use her art to bring people’s attention to it.
“This is important, still meet up and talk to people. Build that connection in person,” Lopez said. “I just feel like in-person connections like that are more fulfilling as opposed to online where you can be very easily deceived,”
Lopez conlcuded by saying that everything in her exhibit was a representation of not only her, but us as humans with our feelings, emotions and that need for connection with other people especially with the events that transipred over the last two and a half years.