Join us on May 17 for the Irwin 2023: Blueprint Opening Reception at the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery. The Reception will be beside the Porter College koi pond. Remarks and awards ceremony at 5:30 p.m.

Blueprint presents selected artwork from the recipients of the 37th annual Irwin Scholarship. Faced with shaky socio-political and environmental prospects, the artists in the IRWIN 2023 cohort offer a return to the drawing board. Without a blueprint for the world as it currently is—or as it will be—the award-winning undergraduate artists reflect on the conflicted, chaotic current moment as a time of potentiality. Their process-oriented practices materialize questions about what should be retained or abandoned in this time of upheaval. Through printmaking, photography, painting, sculpture, and installation, Blueprint reevaluates modes by which to navigate the world to come, offering space for the collective prefiguration of a continuous future. On view at the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery, UC Santa Cruz, from May 17-27, 2023. See directions and parking details here.

The 2023 Irwin Scholarship recipients are Ella Newton, beatriz savin y juárez, Nami Lee, Rae Mancuso, Taylor Wedaa, Matthew Kim, Oscar Kim-Dangle, Ellory Erecius, Maximilian von Strasser, Sydney Gittins, Naish Linde, Nicholas Uglow.

The William Hyde and Susan Benteen Irwin Scholarship Fund was established in 1986, with a modest donation by Sue Irwin, and now generates 12 annual merit scholarships to further the education of selected UC Santa Cruz students for proven excellence in the arts. The William Hyde Irwin and Susan Benteen Irwin Scholarship is our most prestigious student scholarship in the Art Department. The scholars are nominated by faculty to submit a portfolio of work and then are selected by an all faculty vote. This annual, professionally organized exhibition has become a tradition in the art department and for the Sesnon Gallery for over 37 years. This scholarship shows the far-reaching effects of support for the arts.