Through the Looking Glass with Tiffany Ma

Through the Looking Glass with Tiffany Ma

by | Feb 23, 2014 | ALL, Art Events, Openings, Reviews

An MFA exhibit currently on view at Cal State Fullerton installs a fantastical world of imagination in the campus’ West Gallery, but like a wonderland apparition it’s only up for a few days, so if you’d like to see it in person you’ll have to visit soon! Tiffany Ma, who over the past few years has been involved with feminist collective performance art as part of the “Guerrila Gowns” project and was in the recent “Rage Bear” show at downtown Santa Ana’s GCAC, studied photography as an undergrad at San Jose State University, but is clearly no respecter of artistic boundaries, incorporating printmaking, sculpture, performance, craft and spectacle in her work. “An Orchestrated Comfort” presents an imaginary environment that she has worked through in various media through the course of her studies. What began as an idea turned into a sketch and then a photograph; torn into pieces, it began a collage, then evolved into printmaking and wire sculpture.

The MFA show brings it all together in a singular doll house-like installation held up by a large dining room table in the center of the darkened gallery. Appropriately for someone with a photography background, the show is all about looking. There are windows on the outer walls of the structure through which the viewer peers into lighted rooms filled with ladders, hallways and impossibly tall chairs, but no people. There is a sense of aloneness, but leavened with whimsy and wonderment.

For more information about the artist, see tiffma.com

tiffany-ma-2-23-14-1

A sense of wonder — Tiffany Ma’s MFA grad show installation at Cal State Fullerton’s West Gallery

tiffany-ma-2-23-14-2

The view within

tiffany-ma-2-23-14-4

Empty chair

tiffany-ma-2-23-14-5

A view of the landscape

tiffany-ma-2-23-14-6

The OC Art Blog was created in 2004 as a way to build community and promote the marginalized but dynamic Orange County art scene.

Latest Posts

Daisy Chain Fields Sets Bigger ‘Expectations’

Daisy Chain Fields Sets Bigger ‘Expectations’

By Maggie Luy Paper decor fluttered overhead as baby doll dresses and flower crowns filled the crowd. Women-owned vendors lined the walkways as festivalgoers moved through the sunlight, surrounded by bursts of color and music.  That vibrant atmosphere captured...

The Tipping Point: Einar and Jamex de la Torre at the Laguna Art Museum

The Tipping Point: Einar and Jamex de la Torre at the Laguna Art Museum

By Mason Fujikawa The Tipping Point is a two-story installation at the Laguna Art Museum by Einar and Jamex de la Torre. The de la Torre brothers, glassblowers by trade, are prolific mixed-media artists who have exhibited internationally for over thirty years. Born in...

42nd Irvine Annual Takes a Closer Look

42nd Irvine Annual Takes a Closer Look

By Maggie Luy Take another step and lean in. Ordinary objects reveal deeper stories than they first appear to hold.  From delicate threads woven into a portrait to bold images capturing moments of social change, the 42nd Irvine Annual transforms familiar...

Nothing But Net: From Hoop Dreams to Art Scenes at Great Park Gallery

Nothing But Net: From Hoop Dreams to Art Scenes at Great Park Gallery

By Maggie Luy Where does the game end, and the art begin? A basketball court is usually defined by rules and competition. In “GAME! Basketball and Contemporary Art,” that definition expands as the court becomes a surface for design and intervention.  The...

The Machine in the Studio: OC Artists and Gallerists Reckon with AI

The Machine in the Studio: OC Artists and Gallerists Reckon with AI

By Chris Hoff There’s a particular kind of vertigo that comes with watching a technology arrive faster than the culture can metabolize it. Photographers felt it in the 1840s. Painters felt it again when Photoshop showed up. Now it’s AI’s turn, and the stakes feel...

Tags

Categories