As graduate student curators Jianda “Dada” Wang, Ileana De Giuseppe and Zachary Korol Gold wandered the storage facility filled with paintings of Southern California, their minds were fixed on their upcoming exhibition. Soon, visitors would fill the UC Irvine Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, eager to experience the visual dialogue among the carefully selected artworks – how the seemingly transient nature of the art scene birthed social networks and fellowships that continue today.

On display from Feb. 8 through May 17, 2025, a new exhibition, “Common Ground: Early 20^th-Century Artist Communities in Southern California,” highlights 36 pieces, exploring the influence artistic groups in Los Angeles, Laguna Beach and La Jolla left on plein air painting in California.

“A lot of these paintings depict a completely unpopulated wilderness, feeding into the imaginary [view] of California as the pristine, untamed frontier,” Wang says. “However, the artists and social formulations that brought these paintings into fruition … were sociable. They formed lively communities, exchanged ideas, held joint exhibitions, supported each other spiritually, financially – and that is actually the core of California plein air painting.”

Born in Beijing, Wang grew up with an affinity for art – something she attributes to her parents’ appreciation of traditional Chinese ink paintings. This led her to later intern at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, where, Wang says, she was exposed to the inner workings of an art museum and became further captivated by the art world.

Traveling to the United States for college, Wang pursued her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art history and, in 2022, entered UC Irvine’s visual studies Ph.D. program. She began working as a graduate student researcher in the Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art’s curatorial department in 2023, helping assistant curator Michaela Mohrmann with Langson IMCA’s “Spiritual Geographies”exhibition.

“Me and my colleagues Ileana and Zach were diving deeper into the minutia of curating an exhibition,” Wang says. “Then at one point, Michaela proposed we [do just that]. We all loved the idea and started brainstorming.”

The approaching show, emerging from the intersectionality among California lands, the artists that shared them and the iconic art created within these spaces, highlights the common ground that past and current artists stand upon.

Focusing on plein air painting, an art style deeply rooted in the tradition of California, the exhibition features both natural and artistic landscapes of the early 20^th century made in and of three Southern California cities: Los Angeles, Laguna Beach and La Jolla. Drawn to the popular industrial urban center of Los Angeles, the undeveloped terrain of Laguna Beach and the presence of wealth within La Jolla, the student curators aimed to balance the distinctions of each area yet also convey the commonalities among them.

While the paintings emanate an air of archaic California, Wang says, there are many aspects of the plein air style that are still relevant today, transcending the confines of time.

“A lot of these artists were inspired by their love for nature, promoting this idea of it not as a resource to be exploited but something to be valued in its own right – something that can uplift spirits and facilitate connections among and between people,” she says. “We are now reconsidering this narrative of the individual genius to highlight communal efforts in the process of art-making.”

Therefore, the selected works – by such luminaries as Franz A. Bischoff, Alfred R. Mitchell, Edgar Payne, Elsie Palmer Payne, Guy Rose and William Wendt – depict the individual characteristics of these cities while also telling the tale of the dynamic nature of their respective communities, forming a coalition of artists and artistry worthy of an exhibition.

Expected to graduate from the visual studies Ph.D. program in 2028, Wang currently intends to pursue curatorial work in art museums. The third-year doctoral student would also welcome continuing in academia, further exploring abstraction as a visual language and conceptual practice in 20^th century Chinese art.

At the moment, however, Wang is focused on Langson IMCA’s upcoming exhibition. Seeing the art on the walls, she says, will be a surreal and rewarding experience for the student curators.

When asked what she hopes viewers will take away from “Common Ground,” Wang says: “To not take visual images for granted, to not read them at their face value, because there is always more beyond the surface of the painting. There is always more to learn.”

If you want to learn more about supporting this or other activities at UC Irvine, please visit the Brilliant Future website. Publicly launched on Oct. 4, 2019, the Brilliant Future campaign aims to raise awareness and support for UC Irvine. The Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art plays a vital role in the success of the campaign. Learn more by visiting https://imca.uci.edu/support.