A Geography of Dreams

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Stanford Department of Art & Art History presents A Geography of Dreams, the 2020 Undergraduate Honors Thesis Exhibition

The culmination of the yearlong honors thesis program in art practice, this group exhibition showcases works by:

Rawley Clark
Harry Cole
Ashley Michelle Hannah
Maxwell Menzies
Pham Minh Hieu
Nicholas Robles

Curated by Xiaoze Xie

A Geography of Dreams celebrates the creativity, dedication, and persistent hard work of Stanford’s graduating students in the Honors Program in Art Practice. In this online exhibition, works by six young artists are virtually displayed in the McMurtry Building's Coulter Gallery, Vitrine Gallery, and Ground Floor Critique Space via the 3D modeling program SketchUp. The collaborative process provides students an opportunity to work with space, scale, and configuration, gaining experience in the essential aspects of a physical exhibition. Images of artwork, video, and artist statements are accessible on our website, allowing the audience a close viewing of works and insight into the artists' creative concepts and processes. It has been a great pleasure to work so closely with a group of such promising artists. Congratulations to all of our artists in the Honors Program.

Xiaoze Xie, Paul L. & Phyllis Wattis Professor of Art 

Rawley Clark

Rawley Clark studied Art Practice with Honors and African and African American Studies at Stanford University. Through drawing, painting, and sculpture with bold uses of color and composition, Rawley’s work draws on her personal and cultural identities as a queer African American person living in Northern California, and frequently touches on subjects of femininity, touch, and consumption.

Her practice is centered around the connections between nature and the body, interdisciplinary creation, and community. She is inspired by bright colors, magic, Black culture, and the vastness of the universe.

Explore works by Rawley Clark

We Continue On, with Love at the Center (detail), 2020. Colored pencil on black paper, watercolor, gouache, white ink, acrylic. 11x14 in.

Harry Cole

"He related an exchange which took place between his friend Sancho and some Chamorro elders. His friend asked the elders who created the heavens, the earth, and the ocean. They thought the question was foolish. They replied that they themselves created the ocean, the earth, and the heavens by looking at them."

Norman, Oklahoma, 1997
Piti, Guam, 2004, 2009, 2014
Rogers, Arkansas, 2016
Palo Alto, California, 2020

Explore works by Harry Cole

Our Bellow to Hold (detail), 2020. Digital inkjet print. 30x20 in.

Ashley Michelle Hannah

Ashley Michelle Hannah studied photography at Stanford University, where she majored in Art Practice with Honors. Her work, which is mostly photographic, investigates relationships between self, memory, and trauma. By exploring personal narratives of queerness and violence, Hannah seeks to connect with a larger, collective narrative and uncover more generalizable truths.

After graduating, Hannah hopes to expand the Jacksonville series into a mixed-media book that connects her story of violence to the historic violence pervading Jacksonville, a military town.

Explore works by Ashley Michelle Hannah

Jacksonville, 2019. Silver gelatin print. 6x9 in.

Maxwell Menzies

Maxwell “F.A.” Menzies is a filmmaker whose work attempts to answer the most elaborate philosophical and political questions of the anthropocene age with the modest classical and experimental cinematic conventions. This tension between consequential content and pop-film framework in his movies results in an eclectic, cinephilic, and uniquely political body of work.

Rather than manifestos, however, Maxwell’s films present themselves as sites of cinematic pleasure, desire, from which the viewing audience can imagine utopia within the space of the screen. And for Maxwell, the utopia will not be televised, it will be covered in felt!  

Explore works by Maxwell Menzies

Next Generation Sorplecum Poseltoy

Pham Minh Hieu

Pham Minh Hieu (b. 1996, Hanoi, Vietnam) is currently pursuing a B.A with Honors in Art Practice at Stanford University. He studies with artist Camille Utterback, archaeologist Ian Hodder, and physicist Hideo Mabuchi to explore the ontological depth of things by integrating both theory and practice.

Pham Minh Hieu calls his work “total installation” in homage to Russian-American artist Ilya Kabakov’s definition of artwork in which people find themselves fully immersed in the piece. Hieu’s installations are multiplicities that include both himself and his visitors, where things gather and unfold, and in the process, entangle and transform one another. In 2014 he created his first total installation, a 700 square-foot multi-channel video installation titled Ở đây & Bây giờ (Here & Now) in Vietnam.

Explore works by Pham Minh Hieu

Nicholas Robles

Nicholas Robles (b. Cincinnati, OH) is a senior finishing a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.A. in Art at Stanford University. His art practice started with metal jewelry making, and he now works in the mediums of metal, ceramics, and photography. His studies combine an interdisciplinary education, through manufacturing and sculpture. He studies the process of outdoor brick manufacturing in Asia, which inspires his making and material choice for sculptures. The blend of Nicholas’ majors has come through silversmithing, laser-cut collapsible designs, and steel welding.

Explore works by Nicholas Robles

Peeling Wallpaper Portraits (detail), 2020. Digitally rendered: ⅜” square steel tubing, 14 gauge steel panels, rust. 120x8x 72 in.