Two Artists Are Better Than One?

All the artworks pictured below are featured in the Oceanside Museum of Art exhibition "Vantage Point: UCSD Visual Dialogues." A seemingly unstable sculpture is the first thing that meets the eye on entering the Groves Gallery at the Oceanside Museum of Art: a boulder-like object sits atop a tall and narrow wooden structure. The initial impression is slightly unsettling, and this was the exact intent of the artists, Master of Fine Arts candidate Brian Zimmerman and professor Anya Gallaccio of the department of visual arts at UC San Diego. The duo collaborated to create "Cloud," which they say explores "perceived danger," specifically for the exhibit " Vantage Point: UCSD Visual Dialogues." "Vantage Point" is on view at the Oceanside Museum of Art (OMA) through January 15 and features four graduate students and four faculty members working in overlapping styles. The exhibit curator, Danielle Susalla Deery, is familiar with the work of current visual arts MFA candidates because she has visited the annual Open Studios. Having seen the breadth of innovative work coming from department, Deery said she wanted to "showcase the relationship that students have with their professors." Deery selected students working in a range of different mediums and asked them each to identify a faculty member who inspires them and is working with similar techniques or concepts. Faculty members were paired with MFA candidates based on the students' responses and Deery's conversations with the selected students.