[cid:image001.png@01CEA595.3E8C3810] January, 19, 2018 Contact: Shirley Skeel, sskeel@pugetsound.edu<mailto:sskeel@pugetsound.edu> ph. 253.879.2611, cell. 510.684.6715 Kittredge Gallery 2018 Art Students Annual Friday, Jan. 19-Saturday, Feb. 24 [cid:image004.jpg@01D39100.1F1AE480]TACOMA, Wash. - University of Puget Sound's 2018 Art Students Annual opens Friday, Jan. 19, with an unveiling party at 5 p.m., in Kittredge Gallery on campus. See the best work from the last two academic years of art classes-including pieces by everyone from first-year students to seniors. Awards for the most outstanding artworks will be made at the opening night party. The Art Students Annual show is a Puget Sound tradition. Students enter their best work, and a juror selects artwork for the free, five-week public exhibit to Feb. 24. The juror for this year's show is international exhibitor Anida Yoeu Ali.<http://www.anidaali.com/> Ali is a Tacoma-based artist whose works span performance, installation, video, images, public encounters, and political agitation. She is a first-generation Muslim Khmer woman, born in Cambodia and raised in Chicago. After residing for more than three decades outside of Cambodia, Ali returned to work in Phnom Penh in 2011 as part of her U.S. Fulbright Fellowship. Employing an interdisciplinary approach to artmaking, she creates installation and performance works that investigate the artistic, spiritual, and political collisions of a hybrid transnational identity. Below is Ali's response to the student works she judged. Anida Yoeu Ali | Juror Statement "As I begin to sift through the submissions for the Art Students Annual show in Kittredge Gallery, I see courageous acts of artistry- of what it means to create in this moment of uncertainty and divisiveness. And, of course, artworks need not be political to offer voice and value. The works gathered here reflect emerging voices in a vast array of mediums expressing, crafting, and making art out of moments that evoke life, memory, and meaning. They offer viewers a moment for metals to bloom, giant pencils to bend wildly, monsters to emerge, statements to block print, faces to stare into, and so much more. The artworks represent hours and hours of labor, created with human hands and thought and perspective. These analog-based processes of creating offer respite from our fast-moving digitally driven lives. I cannot help but feel echoes of hope and wonder looking at this collection of student artworks at Kittredge." Opening Reception and Awards, Friday, Jan. 19, 5-7pm Gallery Location: University of Puget Sound, N. 15th St. at N. Lawrence St., Tacoma, Wash. Directions and Map: pugetsound.edu/directions<http://www.pugetsound.edu/directions> Regular Hours: Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Website: pugetsound.edu/kittredge<http://www.pugetsound.edu/kittredge> Facebook: facebook.com/KittredgeGallery<http://www.facebook.com/KittredgeGallery/> Newsletter: Signup here<http://eepurl.com/bTpku9> For accessibility information please contact accessibility@pugetsound.edu<mailto:accessibility@pugetsound.edu> or 253.879.3931, or visit pugetsound.edu/accessibility<http://www.pugetsound.edu/accessibility> PRESS PHOTOS are available upon request. Photo on page: A work from the 2017 exhibit -0- Visit our "Newsroom" page featuring a searchable index of Puget Sound sources on a wide variety of topics at http://www.pugetsound.edu/about/offices--services/office-of-communications/newsroom/ University of Puget Sound is a 2,600-student, national undergraduate liberal arts college in Tacoma, Wash., drawing students from 46 states and 8 countries. Puget Sound graduates include Rhodes and Fulbright scholars, notables in the arts and culture, entrepreneurs and elected officials, and leaders in business and finance locally and throughout the world. A low student-faculty ratio provides Puget Sound students with personal attention from faculty members who have a strong commitment to teaching and offer 1,200 courses each year in more than 50 traditional and interdisciplinary areas of study. Puget Sound is the only national, independent undergraduate liberal arts college in Western Washington, and one of just five independent colleges in the Northwest granted a charter by Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's most prestigious academic honor society.