Grad students show final works in MFA Exhibition #3

As the MFA Exhibition #3 draws near, graduate photography student Alexis Hudgins grows anxious regarding her final work as a UCLA student.

“I’m nervous, and there’s a lot of anticipation. I don’t know what I’m making until I’m done,” Hudgins said.

The MFA Exhibition #3, featuring Hudgins’ work along with the work of fellow students Sarah Awad and Greta Waller, opens Thursday at 5 p.m. in the New Wight Gallery and will be on display through April 22.

The featured work is the third in a series of exhibitions representing graduate thesis statements as master of fine arts students prepare to receive their degrees and enter the professional art world. For some, such as graduate painting student Awad, this isn’t such a large step.

“I don’t feel like I’m in school sometimes,” Awad said in regard to turning her passion into her profession.

Awad has an excited disposition toward the upcoming exhibition, as opposed to Hudgins’ anxiety.

Part of Hudgins’ works, and a source of her nervousness, includes a live green screen interviewing session by a producer friend of hers. During this session, Hudgins, along with peers, friends and faculty members, will be interviewed in front of others.

Despite this emphasis on live questioning and spotlighting a single individual, Hudgins said she dislikes being in front of cameras, being recorded and performing.

“I have to do all those things during my opening,” Hudgins said. “I’m not sure why I’ve set it up that way.”

But Hudgins admits that she finds the influence of reality TV in modern culture fascinating, specifically the process behind it.

Much of this fascination can be seen in her work, such as her three-channel projection video compiled from thousands of clips of cellphone footage that Hudgins has been collecting since 2004.

“In reality TV, the model is to film everything and cut out so much that only what you’re picking out to choose to show is the action or something that propels the story,” Awad said, describing Hudgins’ work. “She’s basically taken tons and tons of footage of everything, but she’s chosen to show the stuff that’s the edited-out stuff. She’s taking the garbage and trying to use that.”

Waller, a graduate painting student, will display an extensive collection of her paintings, many in progress since January.

“The smaller paintings were done in one sitting and always have been; the longer ones have taken in the span of five to seven days,” Waller said, describing the process behind her work. “The second large one I did, it took about five evenings. It’s based on items I got on eBay.”

This piece, like all of Waller’s works, was set up in real life and then painted by her. The work features a collection of items strewn about a room, including a coat, pictures of stained glass windows, brush pens and other pictures.

“All these items are from eBay, (but) they’re about me. They’re kind of self-portraits,” Waller said.

Waller’s most distinctive works on display include paintings of ice. Waller said she is fascinated by ice because it is one of the only things that demands to be painted immediately, lest it melt before it can be captured.

Waller also attributed her fascination with ice paintings to her inclination to draw inspiration from her past.

“I went to wilderness camp, and that was a big part of me, being in nature doing anything natural,” Waller said.

While the exhibition is a group show, Awad points out, there is no larger theme to the works selected.

“The interesting thing about this show is that it’s a group show with three people, but it’s not really designed as a group show,” Awad said. “It’s designed (more like) three individual shows in the same space. … It’s our final body of work.”