Colin Campbell Cooper, Bridge Across the Arroyo, 1928, Watercolor and gouache on Paper, 12 5/8 x 17 1/8 x 1 1/2 in. The Buck Collection at UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art
At Home in Sunlight: A State in Motion, 1897–1940
January 31 – May 16, 2026
UC Irvine Langson Museum Interim Gallery
18881 Von Karman Ave., Irvine
Curated by: SeeVa Dawne Kitslis
At Home in Sunlight: A State in Motion, explores California during a transformative period of unprecedented growth, when its industrial infrastructure and cultural identity were rapidly evolving.
At the turn of the 20th century, California was a state in motion. Its major urban centers—San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego—competed to establish themselves as dominant Pacific trade hubs open to Asia. Simultaneously, waves of artists arriving westward from Europe and the US Midwest sought to capture the state’s landscape and new way of life.
Painting outdoors, or en plein air, these artists developed innovative visual vocabularies to express both the ideal beauty of California’s environment and the realism of everyday life. Their work reflected a dynamic period of transformation, as booming populations and growing cities reshaped the land.
From the luminous vistas of California Impressionism to the grounded perspectives of Regionalism, the California Watercolor School, and Social Realism, artists charted the state’s evolution—its expanding built environment, shifting social fabric, and emerging modern identity.
Through At Home in Sunlight, visitors experience California through the eyes of artists who made it their adopted home—revealing the aspirations, anxieties, and transformative energy that turned the state into a symbol of American reinvention.
Developed as part of a new academic engagement initiative, the exhibition also serves as a training ground for UCI graduate students in curatorial practice. The year-long program is conducted in close collaboration with museum staff across all departments and culminates in an exhibition drawn entirely from the museum’s collection.
This initiative reflects the museum’s commitment to academic mentorship and professional experience, offering graduate students the opportunity to shape an exhibition from conception to completion—using works selected exclusively from the collection.
This exhibition is presented with the support of UC Irvine’s Langson Orange County Museum of Art, whose commitment to research and learning helped bring this project to fruition.
About the Curator:
SeeVa Dawne Kitslis is an artist and has been a Graduate Student Researcher in UC Irvine Langson Museum’s Curatorial Department since 2025. They are a second-year graduate student with the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, and has received a BFA from CalArts. Kitslis often curates as an extension of their artistic practice.
At Home in Sunlight is part of a new academic engagement initiative to train and support the curatorial work of UCI graduate students in a professional museum setting. This year-long program is organized in close collaboration with staff from all museum departments. It culminates in an exhibition that draws entirely from the museum’s collection.
This exhibition is presented with the support of UC Irvine’s Langson Orange County Museum of Art, whose commitment to research and learning helped bring this project to fruition.