The Department of Art at the University of California, Irvine is pleased to present the solo exhibitions of MFA candidates Sasha Bergstrom-Katz, Kim Garcia, Amy Mackay and Kyle Welker. This is the first round of 2018 MFA thesis exhibitions. Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, April 28th from 2–5pm.

Afterlight
Kyle Welker — Room Gallery

In the afterlight 
A swarm of prisms drifts upon tattered wings. 
In the afterlight
A low hill of grass rises and falls, as if taking breath. 

Two new works by Kyle Welker explore what it means to remain in afterlight, a timeless state of being in-between. 

is love a tender thing?
Kim Garcia — University Art Gallery

Derived from human experiences, Kim Garcia constructs flamboyant sculptures and projection-loops that enact physical interdepencies. A retelling of past creative collaborations in which residual tensions are paused, enlarged, and stressed to reveal precarious dependencies between forms and forces of energy. Boundaries of proximity are negotiated through ropes, cushions, and impressions, setting scenes of pause before collapse. Through its fictive space, is love a tender thing? investigates interpersonal connection and longing within relationships. 

Effecting a Split
Sasha Bergstrom-Katz — Contemporary Arts Center Gallery (Front)

Sasha Bergstrom-Katz will present a two-channel video installation entitled Effecting a Split which re-performs the transformation scene from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde alongside a magic illusion that requires identical actors to perform a transportation across the stage. The work examines how systematic methods of misdirection and hidden apparati are used in various modes of performance and addresses issues of divided subjectivity and the split body.

Dear Echo
Amy Mackay — Contemporary Arts Center Gallery (Back) 

One weekend in the desert, an event unfolded that was simultaneously a devised theater experiment, a reified myth of ancient Greek gods, and a group of artists seeking repair. The paintings of Dear Echo function as documents of this ephemeral experience. In contrast to traditional documents which serve as visual or linguistic transpositions of actions or scenes, the paintings here instead emphasize the slippages between lived experience, representation, and memory.