Alyssa Razo and David Richards

This Thursday I attended the Graduate show for Fresno State including Alyssa Razo and David Richards. I have had classes with both David and Alyssa, and it was awesome to see how their work has developed and how they've grown as artists.
The show was set up in such a way that each artist had one side of the room. I felt it was very easy to navigate, and the artists curated the show well.
David did a very nice job of placing his images on the walls. His concept was about rock climbing and his experiences with it. he had some images of things found on the ground at sites, and he placed those on the lower portion of the walls. any images he had of people climbing, or himself, he placed in the center of the wall, and those that were from a lower angle looking up, he placed highest on the wall. He even had a simple image of an even blue sky in which he placed extremely high up on the wall. David also put a climbing rope up attached to the ceiling of the gallery, as well as adding some maps and climbing books as a display. I thought these were great touches to his work.
Alyssa's work was amazing. She combined images that she shot of members of her family, done with a 4x5 camera, and some childhood pictures of her with her family. Her statement, along with the quotes from her family, and the statistics about divorce really made the show what it was. It expressed the struggles she's gone through growing up in a "broken" home. However, seeing the vignette about her cousin, who is now raising her child alone, proved that there is an upside to a broken family, which is support. As odd as it seems, a young person can look at the struggles of their parents, and see how they are still going, and how things work out in the end, and it can encourage them in their own situations to keep moving forward and to have strength. I think Alyssa did an amazing job putting her space together, and I think a lot of people can relate to her story and appreciate it.