The illustration and animation departments took over all the student gallery spaces this week in a show titled, “Incrementum.”
The show is meant to be a culmination of graduating illustration students’ work. The artists were judged by a jury who chose what pieces showed the artists’ strengths.
Artworks varied vastly in style due to each student’s different strengths and preferred art styles. On display are character and set designs, animation sketches, 3D illustrations, digital paintings, prints, water colors, animated films and clay figures.
An unspoken rule for the show is that artists set their business cards next to their work so that if someone likes it they can reach out to them and potentially hire them.
“It’s been surreal because we’ve been waiting for this [show] since we first started [school],” said senior bachelor of fine arts illustration student Jacey Roman. “You can see everybody’s creative process and how different we all are, but we’re all from here and worked through all this together.”
Kimberly Dwinell, an adjunct animation professor, showed one of her classes the exhibition.
“I have a character design class with juniors. I heard them walking around saying ‘I can’t believe the quality of work, I can’t imagine I’ll ever get to this place’ and that’s why we bring them because they will,” Dwinell said.
Inside the Merlino gallery, three televisions play clips from various animated student films. Some of the animation clips that are showing are “Death Wish” by Mai Pham, “Emotional Support” by Chelsea Bishop and “Push” a film by Trilina Mai who is an animation intern at Pixar Animation Studios.
This exhibition is only displaying short clips of full films, but animation students will get their time to shine in a showcase titled, “Double Exposure” at the Laemmle Theater in North Hollywood on May 21 at 7 p.m. The screening is meant to show their work to industry professionals who were invited by animation faculty, but is also open to the public for free.
“It’s really inspiring to see where me and other students could be and how much these people have probably improved,” said sophomore studio art major Leila Riveroll.
“Incrementum” will run from noon to 5 p.m. until Thursday, between the Fine Arts 2 and Fine Arts 3 buildings, except for Wednesday, when the galleries stay open until 7 p.m to accommodate off campus visitors.