Nine graduating art and design student artists banded together to create their own senior art exhibition. Their success has reached far beyond the show itself.
 

As students, locals, commencement-weekend visitors and local media entered a formerly vacant gallery space, they were met with a clear demonstration of hands-on career preparation in the visual arts. Large-scale paintings and sculptures were the main subjects of the show, but the student artists’ hard work, collaboration and ingenuity were equally on display.

Months earlier, nine graduating art and design students had formed a collective, Big Artist Corp., to ideate, plan and execute their own art exhibition in downtown San Luis Obispo: Lillie Turinsky, Liliana Monge, Tilman Stoppler, Maya Benham, Owen Isachsen, Cailin Nicolich, Sarah Tarquin, Olivia Pye and Alexa Lopez.

“We tossed around the idea of putting on a small show during grad weekend that would allow our works to be shown to loved ones and any other visitors coming for commencement,” said Turinsky, who helped lead the project with Monge and Benham. “That talk evolved into starting a group collective and larger group show to encourage collaboration, professional ‘art world’ experience and relationship building with our other classmates.”

Monge and Benham handled much of the organizing by reaching out to property owners, scouting vacant venues, assigning roles and keeping the group moving. Tarquin and Pye worked on marketing, including printing logistics and outreach. The rest of the group contributed to fundraising, production, installation and the steady work of creating new pieces.

A successful Cal Poly crowdfunding campaign in March garnered broad support, building the student artists’ marketing skills while demonstrating the broader community’s desire to engage with student artists. Bolstered by these early successes, the artists set out to tackle one of their biggest challenges, finding a suitable gallery space with enough wall surface, floor space and flexibility for large works ranging from oil paintings to wood and metal sculpture. In doing so, they navigated the kinds of logistics that are usually invisible to gallery visitors, including insurance, promotion, sales, installation and the timing of a short-term rental.

Pye said the project revealed “so many little things required to put on a show at this scale that might not be so obvious.” That hidden labor further embodied Learn by Doing. As the artists produced their own exhibition, every obstacle became part of learning the entrepreneurial skills necessary to bring their art to the public: persuading a landlord, making a budget, launching a crowdfunding campaign, designing merchandise, preparing work for sale and coordinating press coverage.

By the opening reception on June 12, the artists’ initial plan to showcase their work had grown into so much more. The final exhibition, “This is Not a Couch,” was named for the art studio’s well-loved light blue couch, where artists rested between long hours of work, talked through ideas and critiques and supported each other’s progress. A worn piece of furniture became a soft anchor for their community. The tongue-in-cheek title pairs that symbol with a nod to René Magritte’s “The Treachery of Images,” a painting better known for the phrase “This is not a pipe.” The exhibition poster features each artist’s illustration of the couch in their own style, showcasing their individual voices within the unified collective.

The work itself reflected that range. Turinsky’s paintings and sculptures draw from religious objects, marine landscapes and the impulse to preserve what feels precious. Monge’s paintings create dreamlike inner worlds shaped by diaspora, cultural liminality and ancestral grief. Stoppler moved from two-dimensional geometric pattern work into larger hand-built wood sculpture. Benham’s paintings examine femininity, objectification and discomfort. Isachsen’s abstract paintings are shaped by ocean photography and nature’s rhythms. Nicolich’s landscapes ask how memory, place and climate change alter what people think they know. Tarquin’s paintings and sculptures explore inadequacy, performance and femininity through forms that feel personal and unsettling. Pye’s closely cropped oil paintings focus on sensual depictions of the female form. Lopez’s mixed media work grows from personal experiences and emotionally difficult memories.

“This experience gives us some insight into the real-world applications of our major,” Benham said. “We get to experience what it is like to be professional artists, but also what it is like curating and advertising a public art show.”

These experiences are invaluable in a highly competitive field where the path forward requires a willingness to begin before every question is answered. Several artists are planning for graduate school. Others hope to work in galleries, studios, teaching, design, commissions or local art jobs. Their plans are varied, but the exhibition gave them a shared artistic practice.

Benham encouraged students, “If you have the fight in you, go for it.” Turinsky said the show helped open new possibilities, including curation, teaching and leadership. For Lopez, the experience was her first art show outside of school, and she was impressed by the group’s determination. “Even if this is our first time doing this,” she said, “I have seen how they take matters into their own hands.”

For CLA students, adaptability is central to the curriculum and Big Artist Corp. was never just about one show in one storefront. “This is Not a Couch” demonstrated students’ preparation for an evolving workforce. Turinsky said she hopes the collective will “grow and take off” even after the artists leave Cal Poly and San Luis Obispo, while Monge said the project has already sparked conversations about becoming an official artist collective and putting on more shows after graduation.

According to Monge “We are showing ourselves that as artists we have the power to make space for ourselves.”

Photo credits: JAY THOMPSON, AMELIA TAI