Exhibition Date: August, 2025
Class 128
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Machine Transformation
- Gosia Rachubka
Machine Transformation explores my ongoing fascination with transformation—a theme deeply rooted in my own life. Having endured trauma and hardship, I’ve come to see pain as a kind of darkness that, through self-work, therapy, and lifestyle change, can be turned into light. My art carries a message of hope: that the old can become new, the broken can thrive, and darkness can give way to light.
In this piece, I reimagine old industrial machinery, depicting a contemporary wastewater treatment plant on the left and a vision of plant-like, regenerative technology on the right. Between them, a gear-like halo turns—symbolizing the dynamic change possible in both humanity and our civilization. Machine Transformation reflects not only my belief in our capacity to create solutions for a sustainable future but also the enduring human ability to transform and heal.
Materials: Paper, Graphite, Foil
The Thing I Love Hurt Me
- Kiki Kim
The things you love hurt you, and the things that hurt you are what you love. You know this already — that moment when a single word from someone close to you tears you apart inside. A former lover, a parent, a teacher, or a friend. People to whom you’ve given your affection. This work embodies my largest scar. When I was one year old, I suffered a severe burn on my left arm due to my grandmother’s carelessness. I have never been hurt emotionally because of this scar. But my grandmother, who always called me her “puppy,” still tears up whenever she sees me. I can only imagine the pain she must feel. Do you feel something pushing you to look away when you look at this dog? If it were a pig or a cow, you’d be drooling.
Materials: aluminum foil, chicken, pork (bacon, ham), hot melt adhesive, acrylic clear glaze spray, epoxy resin
Daydreams Over
- Andres Jeremiah Solares
As a kid I used to draw a lot, but as I got older I lost that form of expression within myself. Now that I’m at VFS and I’ve had the chance to practice illustration and I’ve found that same joy and expression I once had as a kid, specifically with charcoal illustrations. I made this charcoal drawing to get rid of unresolved feelings that I have towards my past friendships that slowly faded away.
This art piece explores yearning for the past feeling of love and friendship, but eventually moving on from those feelings. I've always felt that I try to hide my personality and conform to others. I would like this piece to help me be more truthful with myself and better express myself with others.
Materials: Willow Charcoal, Compressed Charcoal
Reflection
- Li Chenghan
Reflection is born from the simple act of seeing. In our daily lives, we trust our eyes without question, convinced that what they reveal, people, places, and objects, that is objective truth. Yet vision is shaped by who we are; it bends through the prism of our memories, beliefs, and emotions. What we witness is not the world in its pure form, but a reflection of ourselves gazing back.
This charcoal drawing on Stonehenge paper takes inspiration from hyperrealistic drawings and paintings, where light and shadow are rendered with patient precision. Its noir-like mood invites the viewer closer, revealing fine textures and subtle tonal shifts that exist only at an intimate distance. This is also the reason why I chose charcoal drawing over digital or painting, it is because that I was looking forward for an art work that is physical, which exists in the real world, yet also more dramatic, atmospheric than colored mediums.
Materials: Charcoal on Stonehenge Paper
Vivid Melancholy
- Donghun Kang
In this painting I wanted to show how complex sadness can be. I divided the face into fragments with twisting lines inspired by Egon Schiele and the expressionist movement. The left side dissolves into a red background, while the right side stands out with bright greens, blues, yellows, and oranges. I made the two halves different because we try to hide our sadness, but it still shows through. The blurry half is my inner turmoil; the clear half is the face I show others. I chose expressionist painting because it lets me use strong colors and distorted shapes to share raw feelings. The textures of oil pastels help me layer colors and scratch the surface. Even though I struggled with blending, the result conveys a kind of colorful melancholy that expresses both beauty and pain. This project taught me about expressionism and made me appreciate how vivid colors carry emotions
Materials: Oil pastels
Time Flies
- Naomi Eydt
I've always been fascinated by how quickly childhood slips away. One moment you're full of wonder, the next you're caught up with responsibilities and pressure. This piece is my way of capturing that bittersweet shift, the nostalgia, the flashbacks and the strange realization that time never slows down.
I painted it to feel surreal and dreamlike, so the viewer can step into the scene. I want them to feel that they're inside the car, looking out the window wondering what the child is seeing or maybe remembering being that child. It's about connection, about the shared attachment we all have with our younger selves, and the quiet ache that comes with growing older.
Inspired by many surrealism artists more specifically Inka Essenhigh's bizarre yet captivating style, I. used a mix of realism and distortion to create an affinity between the viewer and the moment, inviting them to. reminisce, reflect and feel the pull of time.
Materials: Oil paint on canvas
As Time Passes
- Hanbin Ryu
This painting is inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I chose this story because, like life, it is full of unexpected events and strange turns. My goal is to explore how the choices we make big or small change who we are and where we end up. Time is always moving forward, and every decision shapes our journey. As a child, I loved folktales and the lessons they carried. In this work, I use visual symbols and layered imagery to represent choice, change, and the passage of time. I hope viewers reflect on their own decisions and how time has shaped their lives, just as it shapes Alice's story.
Materials: Acrylic Paint
Borders
- Hugo Hermansson
My interest with geography and maps from childhood has transformed into a view of borders as arbitrary yet devastating human invention. What began as innocent wonder at colored lines on classroom maps evolved into understanding their true nature as killers, dividers, and scars upon our planet.
This digital painting, fragmented across thirty interlocking pieces like a jigsaw puzzle, reflects the fractured state of our world. It represents the daily injustices sustained by geopolitical divisions that pit people against each other based solely on human invention.
As an international student, I've experienced firsthand how these imaginary lines create real barriers and I want my artwork to expose the stupidity of borders while acknowledging their brutal reality.
Materials: Digital Painting
VoiceBox
- Chavisa “Mel” Sae Ung
As an artist, I've always leaned on my creative side, whether in music, theatre, or the visual arts. This piece reflects my past relationship with singing, which shifted from being a joyful hobby to a tool for others' benefit. The video captures my journey: from the pure joy of singing as a child to standing on the big stage, where I felt small and insignificant. The box symbolizes my voice, reduced to something simple and utilitarian.
One of the greatest challenges in creating this work was the exposure therapy I experienced during editing; the longer I worked on it, the harder it became emotionally. Building the box required unfamiliar equipment and hours of tutorials. There were countless trials and errors, both technical and personal, that shaped the final piece. Ultimately, this project represents not only my creative process but also my struggle to reclaim my voice as my own.
Materials: Video, Music Box (Speaker, DFplayer Mini, Battery, Box)
S.T.O.P.
- Albarry Weetman
Life is fast, life is fleeting. This piece is my way to tackle and reflect on how I feel like I failed to realize the importance of each moment. In the past I would just let time pass me by while I did the same things over and over. As I have grown and changed, I've started to realize the value of time and I created this digital video as a way to try and bring that same revelation to the viewer. I picked a video specifically so the constant movement and flow would be shown the off with what people see in their everyday life.
Materials: Video
From the Beginning
- Sherry Li
Do you think these are beautiful? I really enjoy using different colours to practise calligraphy. To me, these works are simple. They don’t have deep meaning behind them. They are here for me to express my happiness.
This series mixes classical calligraphy with a fantasy and vintage style. Each piece is like a small world for viewers to explore. I especially enjoy using metallic colours because they shine and change with the light, making each piece look different from every angle.
The word Free means being free from reality, entering a place where the mind can wander. I took inspiration largely from Greek and Roman mythology. For example, in one work, two muses sit beneath a window, enjoying music and poetry.
Through these works, I hope to give a moment of escape, where viewers can stop, look, and feel their own ideas in a world that is both old and imagined.
Materials: Various inks and dip pen on textured paper
Tomorrow Again
- Wynonna Luicien
This piece reflects the fear and hesitation I often face when starting something new, the uncertainty of whether I can see it through, or if I even have the capacity to finish. That hesitation often turns into procrastination, leaving me feeling stuck and suspended in place while the world continues to fove forward.
Through this work, I’m challenging myself to push past that fear, to follow something through, even if it’s small. I want to see what happens when I don’t give up, and when I allow myself to keep things simple.
The theme is a reflection on feeling stuck in a world that keeps moving, where procrastination becomes a shield against the fear of failing.
The piece features clocks modelled with plaster colth, set against a canvas background with copper wire, and painted in acrylic and oil using a knife/spatula.
Materials: Plaster Cloth, Water, Acrylic Paint, 24in x 24in White Canvas, Paint knife
Molded in Ash
- Daphne Zhang
My piece emerges from the heavy stillness of loss, created to honor the passing of my dog and my own struggle to accept that absence. The sculpture’s bleak monochrome palette and rough, ash-like texture echo a state of mourning that feels unmovable and permanent. A place where rising from the ashes is impossible.
Influenced by the quiet endurance of Ancient Greek statues, I sought to capture a sense of presence within absence, where the form remains, with a simplistic realism but lifeless. My process was guided more by emotion than research, using technique as a way to translate a personal wound into something tangible.
Through this work, I want viewers to feel the kind of grief that presses down, that lingers in the air, that shapes the self as much as loss does. It is a memorial, but also a mirror for anyone who has known the weight of loved one's lingering absence.
Materials: Clay wax modelling paste
SWRL
- Pac Lang
Have you ever felt being dragged down by some invisible forces? Can't see, can't touch, can't smell.
In some philosophical debates it indicates that light is the matter either could be seen or not. Physics has indicated that we can see because of light. I will not be challenging that truth, but instead, light (Laser beam) is the matter that I would like to play around within this project to visualize my idea. The theme of this piece is escape and drowning. The lasers will travel in a zigzag pattern, only to vanish after a short journey. This disappearance reflects the emotional waves we all experience: bad feelings that surge, fade, and then return, surrounding us once again. Like light itself, these feelings can be fleeting, but their return is inevitable. Which would fit in with the emotion waves theme---Bad feelings come and go and eventually return and surround people again just like light.
Materials: Laser, Reflection Art (Mirrors) attached on a cardboard surface
Identity
- Jordan Kraeker
This work is part of my own journey to reconnect with my Indigenous heritage, a return to the stories, symbols, and traditions that shape identity. Yet heritage is only one thread; each one of us is woven from every challenge, every joy, and every person that touches our lives.
In creating this piece, I explored the few resources available about my Nation, and taught myself the foundations of traditional practices such as wood carving and beading. Inspired by the totem pole, an art form that carries stories and identity through its carved figures. I sought to create something that speaks to both personal and shared experience by combining artworks I have created with gifts and memories from friends and family.
I invite viewers to see the work as a constellation of details: imperfect, varied, yet complete when brought together. Like people, it is a sum of many parts, some rough, some intricate, but together they tell a story of wholeness, belonging, and the search for self.
Materials: Wood, Beads, Fabric, Paint, Personal Belongings
To the Moon, and Never Back
- Pim Chitaurjaisuk
In Thai culture, offerings such as food, flowers, water, and spirit money are given to ancestors as acts of love and remembrance. These offerings are a way to reach someone who is no longer here, carrying a quiet gesture that moves across the real world and the spiritual world. In this work, I use a mailbox as a metaphor for sending these offerings, imagining them as messages that might travel beyond what we can see.
To make this piece, I built a small diorama from cardboard, cutting and shaping each part by hand. I decorated it with paper cuttings in Thai patterns, adding layers to give it depth and texture. Working in a diorama format let me create a world contained within a frame, something people can lean in and explore. Every detail, from the patterns to the placement of objects, was made to hold the same care and sincerity as the rituals that inspired it.
Materials: Mixed Media
Neon Hologram
- Ryen Reyes
As I came to VFS, I was certain I would be going to proceed into the 2D classical animation stream and work primarily in that field. However, after learning everything I could from both instructors and my fellow peers in the class and from other programs, I decided that it was not for me. I then pivoted my focus from 2D animation, to 3D animation, where I can continue to utilize the skills I learned up until this point, but in a different medium. I wanted to showcase this whole process in my artwork by combining my split feelings between 2D and 3D animation into one animation where they merge seamlessly. In addition to the animation, I wanted to display it in a unique way, where it almost seems like it is able to take up space in the real world with it's presence.
Materials: Video displayed on a phone, reflected off of glass in a cardboard frame.
Salvia
- Carel Joy Lazo
I’ve recently come to understand that obsession has always been the core of my creativity. Sometimes it’s sparked by silly stories I make up, and other times it’s an idealized version of life that completely consumes me. On May 20th, I had a vivid dream—I lived in a meadow with a daughter and a husband. When I woke up, it felt like something in my brain had been rewired. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and that fixation led to an idea: to illustrate my dreams.
As I explored ways to bring surreal dreams to life visually, I came across the work of Otani Workshop. The child-like and nostalgic quality of his paintings deeply resonated with how I experienced my own dreams. To emphasize the concept of obsession through presentation, I decided the piece should appear isolated—placed on a black background under a spotlight—allowing the dream to stand alone and command attention, just like it did in my mind.
Materials: Oil paint, Canvas, Pen, Paper
Always Moving
- Brendan Lambert
This piece’s original intention was to be about both being new in a new place, and losing touch with where I’m from. But then, I was veered off from that intention in feedback passes, and led to make a piece about process instead. At first, I wasn’t happy about it, and then things started going wrong with software. However, I soon noticed the process was becoming as interesting as the piece. I spent the entire project focused on the finished product; I didn’t even notice the story of the piece unfolding in front of me. Now, I have the “finished product”, but it felt like a shame to not include its story. The process became the artwork.
Whatever I work on in the future, I want to bring forward the ideas from this piece. I want to be an authentic creative with a commitment to always being open about process.
Materials: 12 Wide Animation Paper, 6B/4B Graphite
Through my Eyes
- Zuri Solares
Throughout my life I always felt l had a different lens then everybody else because my feelings of anxiety, fear and loneliness were getting in the way of my life and living it to the fullest. This video is meant to be viewed through my perspective on how I live my life with all these different emotions everyday. I wanted to portray what it felt like to be living in your own bubble and how it affects the world around you. The sound is very important to understand what goes through my mind and my body. Ever since I was a kid there was always anxiety holding me back from speaking my mind and taking action for things I want to do. I have gotten better with dealing with these emotions and confronting them but I take it a day at a time.
Materials: Video
True Feelings
- Elisa Vitoria Echevengua Grando
This two-minute video, combined with photography, explores emotions through visual elements like color and white balance. Created entirely at home with my own materials, it uses everyday objects symbolically to represent feelings. My goal was to show that expressing emotions is okay.
The inspiration came after a mental breakdown in front of my parents. As a very private person, I was used to hiding my feelings, often "sweeping dust under the rug," as my psychologist puts it. That anxiety attack, though uncomfortable, became a turning point.
Afterwards, I felt lighter, more focused, and better able to manage daily responsibilities. The project reflects both the burden of suppressed emotions and the relief of release. It’s a personal expression of growth, healing, and the power of vulnerability.
Materials: Camera, Video and Photo Editing Software
The Faces
- Layla Kim
Humans are multidimensional. Every person in the world has at least one side that others do not know. These sides make human truly human and are what make us more fascinating than any other beings in this world. However, paradoxically, although humans have many sides themselves, they are often unaware of the different sides of others. Sometimes, they do not even recognize the many facets within themselves. This work aims to visualize these various aspects of humanity to promote greater understanding of others. The six face models each represent different facets of human nature. The mirror symbolizes envy and jealousy, the sewing pins represent anxiety and sensitivity, the gel stands for sexual desire, the glitter stickers mean vanity and arrogance, the plastic wrap signifies oppression, and the string symbolizes avoidance.
Materials: Styrofoam head model, String, Sewing pins, Gel, Mirror, Glitter stickers, Plastic wrap
Fragments of Me
- Sushanta ‘RK’ Rajkumar
Fragments of Me is a personal exploration of identity shaped by a lifetime of navigating multiple cultures, each with its own language, traditions, and unspoken rules. The four hands in the piece, each marked with tattoos, represent the cultural identities that have shaped me, their marks acting as visual records of where I’ve been and who I’ve become. They speak to the beauty and richness of diversity, but also to the quiet strain of constant adaptation ,the feeling of being molded by many influences yet never fully claimed by any one of them. This tension between belonging and distance is the thread that runs through my life, and now, my art. Though I’ve always been drawn to creative expression, this is my first opportunity to transform my lived experience into something tangible, a work that holds both my gratitude for these influences and my acknowledgment of their cost.
Materials: Acrylic Paint, Stone Powder, Alginate
Inside
- Galia Rodriguez Gonzalez
This sculpture explores the tension between how we are perceived and how we understand ourselves. We often place people into boxes, judging them by what we can see while overlooking the depth of what we can’t. The translucent surface evokes the illusion of clarity—inviting the gaze inward while keeping the truth just out of reach. Like being judged through fogged glass, there is a sense of both exposure and entrapment: seen, yet never fully known.
Materials: Polymer clay, Mold builder silicone, Wire, Plastic cups, Stainless steel rack, Glass fish tank, Water, Paint
