Multi-Mediated Artistic Adventures
UC Santa Barbara MFA Exhibition, “Incandescent,” Spans Media, Installation Work and Personal-Political Issues in Challenging Ways
Among the many exhibitions on the Santa Barbara art landscape in a given year, the annual MFA exhibition at UCSB’s AD&A Museum stands apart and tends to generate a buzz of challenge to the viewer. As expected, but also in unexpected ways, the current MFA show, going by the umbrella title “Incandescent,” dodges easy expressive routes or more commercial considerations of for-profit galleries.
Installation aesthetics rule here, as do larger conceptual issues posed through art combining media and messages in various interdisciplinary ways. And these Masters of Fine Art candidates aren’t afraid of rough edges and inventive complacency-busting tactics in their work.
It should be noted that this year’s group is notably inclusive of artists beyond the white male American contingency, with a diversity of gender and nationality/race involved. Names alone bespeak the global reach of the participants, with points of origin in Iran, Nigeria, the Philippines, Mexico and beyond: Panteha Abareshi, Diego Melgoza Oceguera, Dannah Mari Hidalgo, Hope Okere, Lyra Purugganan, Mariana Roldea, and Lela Sharhrzad Welch.
