Highlighting Foundations Student: Lara Teixeira Japiassu

Lara Teixeira Japiassu is a student in Drawing Foundations this semester and has managed to catch Adjunct Professor, Chansong Woo’s attention through her hard work, focus, and thoughtful feedback during critiques. As a political science major, she brings an unique perspective to her work.

For one assignment, students in the Foundations Program were asked to respond to an excerpt from the book “Time Travel: a History” written by James Gleick. This text looks at the origin of the concept of time travel and the many implications of why we might travel backwards or forward in time. In response, Lara Teixeira Japiassu, created a drawing that depicts personal memory of place together with a childhood friend to explore themes of identity, memory, and loss.

In Lara’s own words she stated:
“When starting the Time Travel project, I first thought of the idea of bringing a person from the past to the present or future. Having moved from a different country a few years ago, it is often challenging for me to understand how people and places change when I am away, and I have a sort of grief for how the places and people that I knew in my native country have changed while I was not there. Therefore, when thinking of bringing something from/to the past/future, I immediately started with the idea of it being a person and involving my native country or the representation of change in this environment in some way.”

By searching through childhood photos and looking at Google Maps street views of familiar places, Lara gathered reference images that captured how places change over time and brought up feelings of nostalgia. She then combined the imagery through techniques that she learned in class to encapsulate her ideas in a drawing.

Not only did Lara create a piece that exemplifies a personal response to the time travel reading, but she has excelled in many other assignments in Drawing Foundations including Drapery Studies and Still Life Using Limited Values, also pictured here.

It is not only her work in Foundations Drawing, but also her sense of community and her contributions to peers that caused Chansong Woo to nominate Lara for this feature. According to Woo, “her work inspires other classmates… She is always working very hard and seriously…” Lara has provided creative and thoughtful insight for classmates during critique throughout the entire semester.

Feature written by Hannah Keats, Art Department MFA candidate