You are looking into a source of light, or maybe it’s inside you. Either way, you are illuminated. It is lit. You are lit. It is spectacular. It is a wildfire, a riot, a superbloom, an open-heart surgery. It is a death in the family, a looping riff, an exotic bird, a head-on collision. It is as fake as it is real, and it is public hearings and invasive species and reparations. It is sirens and scars, and wide screens and dancefloors. It is an abuse of power. It is long held beliefs and radical departures, strobe lights and shared finger foods in overly air conditioned rooms. It is poor acoustics. It is an uprising. It is artificial blood, it is genocide, it is an aurora borealis. It is your phone. You are a sensitive instrument. You are an organizer, a puppeteer, a found object and a dissonant harmony. You are a clock, a care taker, and a community. You are an antagonist, a dossier, an x-ray, an accomplice. You are a camera. You are a cartographer and a contact microphone. You are an expectorant. And a patient. And also a hard drive. You are a deep shade of green, you are a scientist, you are an aircraft and you are an inheritance. You are a perpetrator, a parent, and an aftershock. You are a witness. WHILE COLOR LIGHTS UP YOUR FACE features the work of The University of California, Irvine Master of Fine Arts Class of 2019. Spanning diverse conceptual, aesthetic, theoretical and socio-political horizons, the class shares three years of intensive research and production conducted against the distinct and tumultuous backdrop of a new American administration and the heightened tensions of increasingly uncertain global climates. With concerns ranging from formal poetics to social justice, each artist in this auspicious class proposes speculative presents and futures with an elevated urgency. Organized by Amanda Ross-Ho. Featuring work by Brandon Davis, Yubo Dong, Anna Ialeggio, Maximilian Karnig, Kristy Lovich, Ariel McCleese, Nicolas G. Miller, Renée Reizman, Corrie Siegel, Michael Thurin, Andrea Welton, and Charisse Pearlina Weston. __