Graduating artists prepare for final exhibition

As the year starts to wrap up, graduating art students are gearing up for their final art shows.

USD Bachelors and Masters of Fine Arts students are scheduled to present their work in their own exhibitions over the next four weeks.

Graduate students Klaire Pearson and Jacob Dugas are doing their exhibitions together from April 4-8. Pearson is graduating with an MFA in painting and Dugas is graduating with an MFA in screen printing.

“Because we’re MFA candidates, this will be our thesis exhibition,” Pearson said. “The reason we wanted to do this together is because we both work with the human figure, we both have really big art work, and also, we’re best friends.”

Pearson said their works are six to seven feet tall.

“We were trying to compete to have the biggest art work,” Pearson said. “Jacob won with his seven foot tall drawing.”

Dugas said they picked a theme to convey through their work.

“We chose perception and perspective because they play into both of our artworks, making the show cohesive,” he added.

Pearson said her oldest piece in the exhibit will be about two years old, while Dugas’s will be almost one year old.

“Klaire’s work has us looking at the female body interacting with its space, where my work deals with the figure looking out at its surroundings,” Dugas said.

Dugas added that their exhibition theme has been cultivating for a while.

“We independently worked on our own series over the years, but there ended up being a lot of similarities,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of transforming since first coming up with the idea. Like Klaire started including children instead of sticking with a single figure.”

When an idea for a new print or painting sparks, both artists said they first capture it in a photo.

“I take like 500 photos for one painting,” Pearson said. “If you’re going to spend about 150 hours on one painting, you want your photo to be good.”

Dugas said his work stems from summers of work.

“It’s just me walking around taking images,” Dugas said. “Sometimes I find photos from my undergrad and then collage them in with photos I’ve taken recently.”

Pearson’s paintings take about three to five months each. Dugas’s work fits in a similar time frame, with the exception of one drawing that took about seven months, he said.

Both Pearson and Dugas said they hope to teach art at the college level after graduation and are currently looking for positions.

The exhibit is open all week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The reception for their week-long exhibit will be held Friday, April 8 from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Warren M. Lee Center for Fine Arts.

“There will be Jambalaya and dinosaur cake!” Pearson said.