The Department of Art at the University of California, Irvine is pleased to present the solo exhibitions of MFA candidates Lauren Goldenberg Longoria, Liz Stringer, and Devin Wilson. This is the second round of 2024 MFA thesis exhibitions. Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, May 11 from 2–5pm.

Lauren Goldenberg Longoria  |  Sweet Spit
Lauren Goldenberg Longoria’s paintings are vulnerable meditations of material, memory, and time. Rooted in a spirit of cannibalizing, Sweet Spit considers how her papermaking process simultaneously relates to the body, nostalgic objects in her grandmother’s home, and the compulsive desire to squeeze what’s oozing. These compact paper works are sympathetic to eachother in how they scaffold, disguise, and unearth. 

Liz Stringer  |  The Showings
Horror is the allure of the forbidden, and what is more forbidden than a body? The Showings is a sculptural procession of amalgamated ceramic, steel, copper, and resin that compound to articulate a body in various stages of protection and metamorphosis. Within this material drama, this existential narrative navigates the various ways in which monstrosity reveals a cultural understanding of a body and its corporeal dread. 

Devin Wilson  |  The Pigeon Has Landed
The Pigeon Has Landed explores the pigeon as the symbolic nexus of capitalism. Serving as both a reflection on obsolete technology in delivery services and an exploration of pigeons as agents of militarized spying, the project confronts the whimsical yet unsettling conspiracy theory that posits "Birds Aren't Real." Through the use of digital fabrication and advanced engineering processes, the work in the exhibition explores the satirical nature of internet meme culture, which produces, replicates, and disseminates fictional narratives and conspiracy theories.