The 2023 Senior Exhibition at Stanford University showcases the work of nine graduating seniors majoring in Art Practice. These talented artists, Tyra Blackwater, Michelle Cai, Clarice Hu, Michelle Ibarra, Andreea Jitaru, Regina Kong, Jessica Lee, Sarah Panzer, and L. Song Wu, have each found their own powerful and unique artistic voice. Through their work in painting, sculpture, photography, weaving, quilt making, drawing, animation, or illustration, these students explore and negotiate their place in the world and offer a new way of seeing and embodying the world. Some focus on introspective self-expression, while others tackle broader societal and global issues. They skillfully synthesize form and content, drawing from historical, cultural, and symbolic contexts to transform them into something new and thought-provoking. 

Themes addressed by this cohort of artists include migration, capitalism, ethnic genocide, climate collapse, colonialism, ancestral traditions, self-portraiture, healing, and rest. They approach these complex topics with sensitivity and creativity, aiming to find new ways of existing in the world and resisting the limitations imposed upon them. They carry with them the knowledge of their ancestors, using it as a foundation to reimagine and construct a better world. “Twice as many stars as usual” references a poem about a two-headed calf and reminds us that embracing difference is where we can find beauty and not spectacle. Join me in acknowledging the significant milestone these students have achieved and celebrating their accomplishments with friends, family, and faculty. Indeed there are Twice As Many Stars in this gallery, and it has been a privilege to work with each of them.

On view May 30 - June 9 at the Coulter Art Gallery. Curated by Terry Berlier.

Join us for the opening reception on Thursday, June 1, 4-6pm!

Student artists featured:

Tyra Blackwater is a multidisciplinary Diné artist from the Navajo Reservation. She is receiving a B.A. in Art Practice from Stanford University in 2023 with Honors in Interdisciplinary Arts. She has exhibited in the Stanford Art Gallery, Coulter Gallery, and the Mohr Gallery, and has an upcoming solo show at /room/ gallery in San Francisco. She comes from the Red Bottom Cheeks and Between his Sleeves clans, and is taught by her relatives and matriarchs. Her artwork exists at the intersection of traditional and contemporary art and is deeply inspired by her relations and the beauty of her homelands. 

Michelle Cai is a multidisciplinary artist from the Chicago area currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Their drawing, sculpture, and sound expose the temporalities that sediment in the relationship between their body, the paths of migration they inhabit, and the materials and processes of their practice. The renewed perspectives on time that emerge from these layers are a route to healing and rest from capitalist and colonialist violence. Michelle’s work has been supported by the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Kearny Street Workshop, Stanford Asian American Theater Project, and the Cantor Arts Center. 

L. Song Wu is a figurative painter originally hailing from Tampa, Florida, but lives and works in Stanford, California. She is currently studying art and engineering and will graduate with her double major in 2024. Wu’s confrontational paintings aim to alienate viewers and force them to reckon with their spectatorship towards the displayed figures. Her artwork has been exhibited in New York, San Francisco, and Berlin. 

Regina Kong is a painter born in Berkeley, California. She is receiving a B.A. with Honors in Art Practice and a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Stanford University. Her paintings examine the fraught nature of human relationships to the environment. Recent exhibitions include SOMArts, San Francisco; Slow Violence, Stanford University and New Voices, Peninsula Museum of Art.

Jessica Lee is a Bay Area artist with a B.A. in Art Practice from Stanford University.  Her current practice integrates a wide range of creative fields, including fine art, illustration, design, and creative writing. The stories she creates explore the dynamics between character, power, and the world at large through invented narratives.

Clarice Hu is an oil painter from Hong Kong currently based in Stanford, California, where she is pursuing a BA major in Art Practice and a minor in Psychology. Hu will be attending SAIC for her MFA in Fall 2023. Her upbringing in the cosmopolitan city informs her fascination with how humans engage with nature and industry. Her large-scale paintings warp perspective and draw similarities between plant life, the human figure, and natural or industrial environments, to create fluid compositions and strange new worlds.

Michelle Ibarra is a multimedia visual artist with roots in San Francisco’s Mission District. She is receiving a B.A. with Honors in Art Practice and Psychology from Stanford University in 2023. Ibarra has been awarded both Stanford’s Chappell Lougee Grant and the Major Grant for her collections of visual art and poetry, The Barrio Romantic and Chasing the Colibri.

Andreea Jitaru is a Romanian sculptor and print artist from Chișinău, Moldova, working in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is receiving a B.A. in Art Practice in 2023 and a M.S. in Computer Science in 2025 from Stanford University. She has exhibited at Mohr Gallery and SOMArts. She tackles themes of cultural and personal identity, ethnic genocide, and resistance to Russian imperialism and colonialism. Her work is grounded in the intergenerational storytelling of traditional craft.

Born in Tacoma, Washington, Sarah Panzer is a visual artist primarily working in film photography and based in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. They received a B.A. in Honors in Art Practice from Stanford University in 2023. Through their work, they interrogate gender, sexuality, identity, and visibility, in the context of queerness, whiteness, violence, vulnerability, mental illness, longing, and belonging.

Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday, 11:00am - 5:00pm*

*The exhibition will be open for limited hours on commencement day, Sunday June 18th.

Installation: May 22 - 26, Deinstallation: June 19

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Coulter Art Gallery is located at 355 Roth Way, in the McMurtry Building of the Stanford campus. Visitor parking is free all day on weekends and after 4 pm on weekdays, except by the Oval. Alternatively, take the Caltrain to Palo Alto Transit Center and hop on the free Stanford Marguerite Shuttle.

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