Visual Arts seniors’ colorful futures

DAA+AH graduates discuss their unique work and post USD plans

Jessica Mills / Arts & Culture Editor / The USD Vista

This year, 12 students presented their senior thesis for the Art, Architecture and Art History (DAA+AH) program within the College of Arts and Sciences. Just as each student’s art and educational journey looks different, so too are their futures as they continue as the next generation of artists, architects, designers, critics and creative thinkers. 

All visual arts seniors are required to create and present their senior theses in the Visual Arts Gallery in Sacred Heart Hall in a medium of their choice. A few of these seniors discussed their theses, work and post-graduate plans. 

USD senior Jonah Wright (who uses any pronouns) is a double major in Architecture and Visual Arts. Wright wears, in their own words, “two different hats,” for each major. 

“Right now I’d say I’m most proud of both of my theses for visual arts and architecture,” Wright said. “I have made a lot of video-based art and work a lot with collage. More recently I’ve been very interested in art books, making books that are works of art and informed by artistically driven decisions. My thesis in particular, I made a quilt that converts into the form of a book. I sort-of engineered a sewing pattern using buttons, where you can make it into turnable pages or you can make it into the form a regular made quilt would be.” 

Wright currently interns for the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), a public transportation agency. 

“I’m interning [here] because I’m very interested in urban planning, but my passion is for regional governance and policy, and things like that. As for my visual arts practice, a goal of mine is to make beautiful, quality quilts. I’m very interested in the sense of community and socializing that surrounds quilt making and how traditionally there’s so many different cultural interpretations. I want to pursue a sense of other people’s belonging in the work and not really tying my own identity into the piece, making it the process of an entire group of people.” 

USD senior Sean Sarmiento (he/him) is also a Visual Arts major and has a Marketing minor. His work and senior thesis was more photography focused. 

“I just had my exhibition a couple weeks ago, and I was super proud of how it came out,” Sarmiento said. “A lot of my work is very photography-based, my whole installation had to do with making commentary on what’s two-dimensional and what’s three-dimensional. They are photographs but they break the basics, a lot of them are transparent or metallic.” 

Within the physical layers of his work, Sarmiento intertwined a deeper meaning. 

“The show was titled ‘Somewhere No One Knows my Name’ and it depicted domestic spaces and self-portraits, and within my work I’m kind of talking about how queer identities fit into domestic spaces, and the whole show was in this in-between area. That was the whole commentary of the show — queer-ness is kind of there but not, it kind of gets erased but not. So I think the big takeaway is the feeling of: not quite one thing but not quite the other.”   

Sarmiento plans to continue working on his craft post-graduation, some of which will take place at USD. 

“Right now I work at the Art Department at USD, and I plan on just working full-time over the summer,” Sarmiento said. “I am looking into some museum jobs in San Diego, and I’ve applied to some group shows. I’m also releasing a poetry book, which I’ll hopefully have out before the school year’s over, but if not, definitely this summer.” 

USD senior Clara Barra Ladron de Guevara (she/her) is a Visual Arts major and within her mixed media art, looks at different perspectives. 

“I’ve been focusing the last year on the merge between photography and sculpture, specifically in acrylic and plexi glass and mirrors. In both a literal and conceptual sense, I kind of want to provide a different perspective, because I play with mirrored perspectives and learn how to reframe things.” 

Barra Ladron de Guevara utilizes her experience with narcolepsy, a sleep disorder that causes drowsiness throughout the day and can lead to falling asleep suddenly. 

“For me, specifically in my thesis, I tried to represent a new perspective on consciousness and how that can be looked at through elements like reflectivity, transparency and opacity,” Barra Ladron de Guevara said. “That emulated my experience with narcolepsy, being present and not, having a sort of fragmented reality. My other identities, Mexican, Hispanic, queer, I think those reflect in my art through my attitude. I always felt like I didn’t make art that was ‘Mexican enough’ or explicitly what people expected. I always try to challenge those identities.” 

Barra Ladron de Guevara plans to continue to make mixed media art outside of the U.S. after graduating.

“I think I’m going to try to get an internship or a residency, I’m applying to things all over,” Barra Ladron de Guevara explained. “I definitely want to go abroad. I’m from Mexico City, and I think I want to go outside of the U.S. and look for opportunities there. At some point I want to be the creative director for a video, whether that’s a music video, for a fashion house or anything really.” 

USD TV Station Manager and senior Gabrielle Grimm (she/they) is a Visual Arts Major with a film and media emphasis and a Communication minor. Grimm directed, wrote and filmed her senior thesis, which is entitled “Strawberry Milk Mob.” 

“My senior thesis is a 17 minute film, which has a full cast and crew,” Grimm explained. “Through flashbacks, the story provides a character study of the nuanced ways a person can change and gives a look into the playful world into their college, queer friend group. The focus is looking at the beauty of someone’s change, without needing to know why. Basically, this short film is about watching someone overcome depression and the beauty in that. I wanted to lean into something that was really simple but really beautiful.”

A private screening of the film and a panel will be held on May 13, at 4:00 p.m. in Warren Hall Auditorium. For Grimm, this is just the beginning of their film career. 

“My plans have always been to have a gap year before I go to grad school for film,” Grimm said. “In my gap year, I’m backpacking through Switzerland with my sister. I know I’ll probably go to grad school in L.A. and I want to be grounded before I get sucked up into that culture.” 

USD senior Jungsu Lim (she/her) is a Visual Arts major who focuses on making animation. 

“I’m from South Korea, and I wanted to study something that I really like and I found that I really liked watching animation, now I really like making it,” Lim said. “I spent almost a year making my thesis, and it’s about the Buddhist concept of beauty. I talked about my life story, childhood trauma and at the end, the character found her beauty by letting everything go. My goal is to give some kind of a positive energy to [people watching my work], I want to make something ethical, something educational.” 

Lim is currently waiting to hear back from two graduate programs and hopes to continue her animation work after completing her degree. 

“If I don’t get in I’m probably moving to L.A. to get a job, hopefully working for an animation studio. I just want to keep making art.” 

While these are just a handful of graduating DAA+AH seniors, their impact and work on campus is felt by those within the USD community.