Now Trending: 6th Annual Alpay Scholarship Exhibition
June 6 – July 9, 2022
Current art and media students from Southern California colleges and universities were invited to submit engaging new work to be showcased in Palos Verdes Art Center’s Alpay Scholarship Exhibition, Now Trending. This call was open only to currently enrolled undergraduate and graduate students in Southern California.
The recipient of this year’s $5,000 Alpay Scholarship Award is Nagisa Mizushima, attending Otis College of Art and Design.
Juror: Ben Jackel
Ben Jackel was born in Aurora, Colorado in 1977. He attended the University of Colorado at Boulder and studied fine art with a focus in ceramics and photography, receiving his BFA in 2000. In 2002 Jackel moved to Los Angeles to attend graduate school at the University of California, Los Angeles. While at UCLA he worked with Adriane Saxe and Charles Ray, receiving his MFA in 2005. He is represented by L.A. Louver in Venice, CA. His highly mimetic work has been written about by the Los Angeles Times, Artforum, ARTnews, among others. He currently teaches at PVAC.
Read his juror’s statement, below.
All visitors age five and older must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination. Wearing face masks is strongly encouraged.
Raul Abarca, Bobbi Bosson, Matthew Brugger, Elijah Cameron
Evan Cespedes, Molly Champlin, Alexis Coleman, Trevor Coopersmith
Julianne De La Cruz, Dede Lucia Falcone, Danielle Foster, Katie Francis
Luz Kobayashi, Mikaela Kozelchik, Sophia Li, Michael Lopez
Keleigh McMullen, Tiffany Meier, Nagisa Mizushima, Kole Morrell, Ann Pickard
Nicole Roldan, Lizbeth Roque, Brooklyn Scantlebury, Jane Talbott, Andrew Wharton
JUROR’S STATEMENT
Palos Verdes Arts Center is a unique and vital art and cultural center nestled high in the hills of the Peninsula, gazing across the vast Los Angeles basin. From this special place you can see a good portion of Southern California, a global center of creative thought and industry. It has been a true delight and honor of mine to jury Now Trending: 6th Annual Alpay Scholarship Exhibition. This important show gave me the opportunity to look out across all of Southern California and witness the works of numerous thriving and vital art students creating inspiring and tremendous work. Every student that submitted work for consideration should be commended — bravo! Keep it up and please keep creating. With so much strong work, narrowing down the selections to what will fit in the PVAC galleries was indeed a challenge. It has been a difficult time — especially difficult for students. As a university educator, I have seen the real human struggle that so many of my students have endured during the ongoing pandemic era. Norms of socialization, communication, and personal identity have been twisted, distorted and broken. Reviewing the applications for this show, I could see similar themes emerging — an intense search for identity and beauty in rapidly changing landscapes. The creators of these artworks have been remotely instructed, masked, and distanced. They have been forced to live their formative years during a uniquely challenging time. Regardless of these challenges, it’s clear that they have persevered and they have triumphed. The creativity and early mastery of the arts displayed in this show guarantee strong and inspiring artwork into the distant future. Student shows like this are a vital conduit for young artists to make the leap from education into their own art careers.
Deep thanks to everyone at Palos Verdes Art Center who made this show possible. Thank you, Dr. O. Allen Alpay, for your generosity and vision for this tremendous vehicle dedicated to student success in the arts.
Ben Jackel, Juror
This exhibition is made possible, in part, by generous support from –
