In this years addition of the Roski Student showcase, three exhibits were center stage.
Held in the Roski Studios building just off of campus, exhibits were open to the public on February 1 from 6-8 pm. However, a reservation is required with the artists in order to view the art pieces starting February 2 through 16.
Junior Xyla Abella studies Fine Art and has created an exhibit called “Because I was Flesh,” which features a seven-foot sculpture of Eve as a snake. Inspired by her catholic upbringing, she wanted to create a piece that was a culmination of her experiences, feminism and religion.
Abella: I grew up in the church and and that was a part of me that I couldn’t really separate from I just didn’t, I no longer felt like I was supposed to be part of it. I didn’t know who I was without the church. But I also didn’t want to be a part of it. So that I was like this internal conflict that was really interesting to me.
Abella continues about the inspiration for her art.
Abella: In church there was this gesture that I was that I had as a child of like looking and then feeling it was as like the cyclical idea, the cyclical gesture of looking and then feeling something and I wanted to do kind of the same thing.
Abella said that though the story of Eve might be old, there are still parallels to modernity.
Abella: This idea of like the woman being blamed and the woman being hunted, there was like, really strong correlations to just how women are treated today.
Isa Perez’s exhibit, called “Enamorado Con lo Divino” also looked at Catholicism, but Perez focused on exploring tension between identity, Latinidad and religion. The exhibit features photographs of Perez’s subjects expressing their personal and cultural identities.
Perez: The tension between like the expectations of where queer bodies are thought to or supposed to be found and where they’re not supposed to be. It’s just really important to prove that wrong.
Perez drew inspiration from their lived experience and childhood, experiencing the conflict between aspects of their identity.
Perez: It felt really restricting, and kind of like, I had to choose all the time between one of the three, or that I couldn’t really express myself to the fullest.
Perez said being able to show their work at USC was freeing for themselves, and hopefully for the people who see it.
Perez: It kind of feels like I’m just taking back a part of myself that was always suppressed, whether it was by other people and outside forces, or by myself when I was still dealing with how to accept myself. And so it’s just a really big validation, and just to know that I’m helping other people feel seen just means a lot to me.
Perez acknowledged that not everyone will relate to their photographs, saying they had two goals with the exhibit.
Perez: Those who come in and see my work and don’t resonate with it, that’s fine. I don’t expect everybody to but I definitely want them to know that people like this, people like me exist and that we’re able to express ourselves in any way possible.
And for those who do understand what they are trying to do with their work, this is what they had to say.
Perez: I hope that they see themselves in it and they feel represented and I hope it gives them the power to like just be themselves and express themselves fully.
Friday is the last day to see these exhibits with a reservation.
For Annenberg Media, I’m Isaiah Alwin.