CalArts Mid-Residency Show

       At CalArts, a "mid-residency review" is a solo exhibition showcasing one’s art on a school-provided gallery space as well as a faculty-led assessment of a student's progress and work, a requirement of the curriculum in earning your degree from the school. The Mid–Residence Review is a measure carried out by a faculty committee of tenured professors and artists approved by the dean of the school of Art. This committee partakes in a dialogue with the student and makes a detailed assessment of the student’s record and work in relation to the objectives of the program, the student’s goals, and the progress toward the degree.
        My particular mid-residency was a conceptual exploration of the infrastructural eco-system of my hometown Los Angeles. Finding beauty in the otherwise conventionally unattractive form of power lines, industrial cranes, and artificial grass, my work was an attempt to bridge the manufcatured and synthetic with the cultured reputation of art and our typical perception of beauty within our environment. By incorporating the concept of the mandala, a spiritual geometirc symbol that in some interpretations represent a “pure and unadulterated land,” I aimed to draw comparisons of the two that seemed world’s apart from one another; of the idealistic and the reality, or the artificial and the spiritual.