Art and Art History Alumni
Calling all Art Alumni
Did you take classes in the Art Department at SBCC? If so, we're looking for you!
Please take the time to fill out our Alumni Information Form, or our Short Alumni
Survey.
Thank you for keeping in contact with the SBCC Art Department!
Alumni Information Form Short Alumni Survey
Overview
Our students transfer on a regular basis to both undergraduate and graduate programs in the Cal State and UC System including UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles, Cal State Long Beach and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Students also transfer to top tier art schools including RISD, CalARTS, California College of the Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago. A number have recently completed MFA programs at Yale, Columbia, New York University and UC Irvine. Alumni are now exhibiting at galleries and institutions such as Mexic- Arte Museum, Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art, Journal Gallery, Black Ball Projects and Mier Gallery. Our program provides a comprehensive education integral to working in a range of fields including art, art education, curation and museums, animation and gaming, interior design and textiles, and graphic, product and environmental design.
Below are a few examples of featured alumni.
Evelyn Contreras
Evelyn Contreras completed the studio degree in the Art Department at Santa Barbara City College and transferred to finish her BFA at Cal State Long Beach. She then completed her MFA at the University of Texas at Austin. Contreras is now on faculty and Director of the Print and Media Lab at CAL ARTS. Her work is in collections like Mexic- Arte Museum, Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art and El Minia University.
Artist’s Statement: Through printmaking and fabrication techniques, she creates an optical experience that makes the viewer look at space and materials differently, creating a cinematic experience through color, light and form. She incorporates Chicano cultural lexicons and references highbrow and lowbrow art movements.
Featured Art: Evelyn Contreras "Suspension", 2021. Acrylic, GIF, Monitor, House Paint, Spray Paint, Wood, Mirrored Acrylic 48" x 48" x 24"
Tamar Siegfried Rosa Halpern
Tamar Siegfried Rosa Halpern studied in the Art Department at Santa Barbara City College. She then transferred to complete her BFA at University of New Mexico and received her MFA from Columbia University. Her work has been included in recent exhibitions at Journal Gallery, Black Ball Projects and Mier Gallery, and has shown work in Belgium, France, Portugal and Turkey. She’s been featured in publications by The New Yorker, New York Time, ArtForum and Frieze Magazine.
Artist’s statement: “My work asks to be experienced as cinematic and dynamic, as well as an expression of ideology, time and truth. Loneliness is intrinsic to creativity, an exploration of interior spaces, a revelation of intimacy. I view interiority as a space of time travel, a layering of time, in between fragmented thoughts. My recent paintings and plexi work came about while sheltered in place, during a time of uncertainty, loneliness in the world. I turned inward searching deeper within myself for truth, and outwardly to be supportive and take action. In experiencing my work as a transitory space, a series of compositions dissolving into each other rather than a static picture, viewers will confront and unravel the construct of time.”
Featured Art: Tamar Halpern I AM IN IT, I AM RELENTLESSLY TALKING ABOUT TIME I CAN FEEL IT DRUMMING, RARELY AM I PEACEFUL, BUT I'M DIGGING THIS LITTLE HOLE RIGHT HERE WHICH IS REALLY TEARING A HOLD IN THE OTHER THING, ENGAGING IT SOMEHOW IN A WAY I LIKE AND THAT LETS ME FALL OUT. Medium: UltraChrome Ink, Pigment Dispersion, Chinese Crinkle Silk, on Linen. Dimensions: 42 x 32 x 1 inch