President Neufeldt Hosts Fourth Student Art Exhibition

By Debby Clark

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Creativity plays a vital role in how we understand the world and one another.

At Cal State San Marcos, President Ellen Neufeldt has turned that conviction into a tradition, hosting her fourth annual student exhibition in her residence.

Each showing has been curated by professional artist and CSUSM alumna Sarah Bricke, whose continued involvement has helped shape the series into a meaningful space for student expression.

This year's showcase, "Forms of Growth," explores the intricate forms, textures and patterns found in plant life. Through sculpture, photography and drawing, the artists use botanical subjects to reflect on personal and social experiences.

More than 800 CSUSM students major or minor in the arts within the College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences, and this exhibition highlights the range of its creative community.

The featured artists this year are Amber Miller, Charlotte Dumbeck, Destiny Kirchner and Rodas Alonzo.

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Amber Miller

Miller creates sculptures and photos that embody intimacy and proximity to counteract cultures of abuse. Relating Mother Nature with the human body as a shared essence of the soul, she demonstrates the art of connection brought from Mother Nature herself. By relating to nature in this way, her practice seeks to illustrate ways of being that exist outside of structures determined by oppressors.

Charlotte Dumbeck

Dumbeck creates art that critiques a global economy sustained by overconsumption and investigates its cultural and environmental consequences. She often experiments with material reversals that embody tensions between organic and inorganic items. Through acts of material transformation, the work invites viewers to reflect on the consequences of everyday consumption and our fractured relationship with the natural world.

Destiny Kirchner

Kirchner explores how the structures of plant life can shape the composition of visual art. By casting molds of real plants and pairing them with artworks of botanical studies, she translates plant morphology into both physical relief and visual inquiry. The plaster molds capture the exact imprint of each plant, preserving tiny details that might otherwise be overlooked. These impressions sit alongside illustrated botanicals of native plants in California. Together, they create a conversation between scientific observation and artistic interpretation.

Rodas Alonzo

Alonzo uses sculpture to reclaim ancestral Indigenous knowledge related to agriculture, identity, spirituality, gastronomy and ecology. She constructs sculptural forms with colorful patterns using materials such as plaster, wire, cardboard, leavesand clay, allowing organic and industrial elements to interact and reveal the tensions between the living and the inert. These materials trace ecological systems and connect them to ancestral teachings on land management and sustainability in Indigenous communities in Guatemala.

Across all four artists, plant life becomes a way of asking larger questions about identity, consumption, memory and belonging. The result is a thoughtful exploration of how we connect and grow.

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