'Emerging Masters 2021' Exhibits Laguna's Artists Of The Future

LAGUNA BEACH, CA—Two of the town's venerable arts institutions, Laguna College of Art + Design and Laguna Art Museum, have collaborated on an exhibition of paintings by the art school's Master of Fine Arts students. Opening May 15 at the museum, "Emerging Artists 2021," is open to the public in a timed entry. Reservations are required to view these diverse and highly skilled works.

“It’s great to have a chance to spotlight these remarkable artists at a world-class museum," said Peter Zokosky, exhibition curator and chair of the MFA program in painting and drawing. "Students come to LCAD because we believe that enduring art comes from a fusion of contemporary ideas and time-honored skills."

Previewing the images in digital form truly whets the appetite for examining the textures, colors and edge work of the actual paintings hanging on a gallery wall. That's when the true scale of the paintings jumps into 3 dimensions.

Get your masks ready. Make your reservations. It's time to re-enter the museum.

While works in oil applied to canvas predominate in "Emerging Masters 2021," pastels and watercolors also appear on panel, paper and linen. The pieces display a burgeoning mastery of craft that is clearly up to the task of expressing diverse imaginations and world views.

Subject matter ranges freely from an evocative still life to a twist on Edward Hopper's Nighthawks. Cityscapes, fantastic worlds and intimate portraits that inspire complex stories hang side-by-side with paintings that capture action and inaction, as in Matt Duckett's Smash and Mason Williams' Boulders and Yucca, respectively.

Exhibiting artists—all graduate students studying painting and drawing—include Brian Blasman, Tracy Child, Jessica Chong, Peter Clarke, Daniel DeMeza, LinHui Ding, Jason Dowd, Matt Duckett, Jody Gerber, Tony Guo, Mike Lee, Jill Maytorena, Kelley Mogilka, Mark Silverberg, Kelly Jane Smith-Fatten, Laura Sonnek, Agostino Vaccaro, Ray Vargas, Renae Wang, Pamela Wells, Mason Williams, Xiaohan (Nora) Xu and Emma Yervandyan.

"Learning how to draw and paint with a high level of skill is a discipline that enables the artist to truly see and effectively communicate what one comes to understand,” adds Zokosky.

Come see what these aspiring artists understand of the world through their exquisite work in "Emerging Masters 2021."

On view at Laguna Art Museum in timed entry through May 31, 2021.