UC Davis alumni Thea Hudson and Genevieve Ryan share the thought process behind their first joint exhibition, “Friends are Everywhere”
By SAVANNAH ANNO — arts@theaggie.org
From Sept. 4 to 28, visitors of the John Natsoulas Gallery were given the opportunity to explore “Friends are Everywhere,” a new exhibition by best friends Thea Hudson and Genevieve Ryan.
Located on the second floor of the gallery, the month-long exhibition included paintings, graphite drawings and various mixed media pieces from the UC Davis alumni. With each artwork depicting at least two figures — usually dancing, holding hands or making music — it would have been impossible to experience Hudson and Ryan’s exhibition without thinking of your own partners in life, whether it’s an old friend you miss or a sister you just spoke with recently.
Working to explore the complexities of friendship, Hudson and Ryan discussed not only the joy that platonic love brings but how one grapples with the inevitable loss of that connection.
“A very beloved friend of mine passed in 2022, and much of my art is born from my grief and reflections on friendship, life and loss,” Ryan said via email. “Yet in this grief, there’s a profound vividness to life. A friend who is no longer here is present in the trees, in the sky, in the light.”
Translated into Ryan’s graphite drawings, black-and-white depictions that may at first feel somber are transformed by interactions between the figures within. Sometimes appearing to be on different planes, with some figures shaded and others startling white in drawings like “Horses,” they are connected nonetheless as they move in the same directions and reach for the same things.
With pieces like “Arils” and “Reaching,” Ryan creates vivid and mystical depictions of nature — a red stained glass pomegranate hangs in the gallery window, and friends lift their arms up toward a plant that dissolves into a bright white sky.
“I love Genevieve’s art so much,” Hudson said. “I can’t even pick a favorite. However, her stained glass pomegranate with the little babies in it is so beautiful.”
On the other side of the exhibition, Hudson’s work celebrates the simple, yet essential, pleasure of company through bright and whimsical beings. Folkloric figures dance together in her colorful “Maypole,” while a dreamy trio of vampires rest in a field of pink flowers together in Hudson’s “Vampires in Springtime.”
“When I close my eyes, sometimes I see the colors of Thea’s springtime vampires and the afterglow of the image lingers in my mind’s eye,” Ryan said. “I love it, all her work is so imaginative, it makes me feel like I’m seeing fairytales come to life.”
“Vampires are used to represent a lot of things,” Hudson said. “To me, vampires are hungry, undergoing semi-violent rebirth, clawing their way out of the soil like flowers. Feeling the creative drive after a dead period [as an artist] feels like that. Lady vampires in particular are often represented in groups, so for me [the piece] is an expression of creative partnership.”
Perhaps a reference to their own friendship, Hudson and Ryan — like the springtime vampires — thrive and grow as a result of each other’s presence. Inspired by one another on both a professional and personal level, the best friends hold a unique appreciation and reverence for each other.
“Thea is like a holy center of the creative process,” Ryan said.
In response to this description of her, Hudson said she feels the same way about Ryan.
“She’s like the high priestess of art,” Hudson said.
Hudson, who has been working with the Natsoulas Gallery since 2022 as a graphic designer, was given the opportunity to create an exhibition by owner John Natsoulas after her work with the Davis Mural Team. Designing the mural “La Blessure” in 2023 — located behind the downtown Davis post office on D Street — and working closely with Ryan throughout the process, Hudson explains the birth of “Friends are Everywhere” began there.
“We believe that when the universe was formed, our meeting was already present in the fabric of existence,” Ryan said. “From there we’ve just come to understand how cosmically right it is for us to be together.”
Both UC Davis alumni also reflected on their experience as students and what most prepared them for the creation of the exhibition.
“I learned some exhibition design at UC Davis, but most of my experience came from doing design work for other artists’ shows at the [Natsoulas] gallery,” Hudson said.
Additionally, Hudson suggests that artists looking to install their own exhibitions in the future shouldn’t confine themselves to a traditional gallery space in order to gain experience.
“Genevieve let me install an exhibition with homemade labels and wall text in our apartment last year, which gave me a lot of experience making a cohesive body of work,” Hudson said. “I wouldn’t have been prepared for this exhibition otherwise.”
Having to create a space where each piece complements the others around it, especially when it features two artists with different visual styles, can be a challenge. For Hudson and Ryan, the grueling experience made them more excited for what the future has in store.
“It was ruthless,” Ryan said. “There was a tight deadline and we both had a lot of concepts that we had to discard on the fly, but our discarded ideas are now seeds sown for future exhibitions we want to do together.”
One idea that did stick, however, was Hudson’s “New Friends Birdie Game,” an interactive piece that encourages visitors to sit with one another and play. A large painting framed by sculpted faces, the game uses a projector to create glowing silhouettes of plants and two characters that visitors can move around as they hear a singing chorus.
“[The game] is some version of an operatic, interactive painting-sculpture that has been lingering in the back of my mind since I was 12,” Hudson said. “To see it realized and to see people enjoy it is the best feeling. I loved sitting close to the installation and hearing different ages of people figure out how to play.”
As the pair reflect on the long journey of creating “Friends are Everywhere,” both Hudson and Ryan affirm that the greatest feeling has been seeing guests resonate with their art. With both artists tugging on the heartstrings of anyone who understands what it feels like to have a partner — a friend, a mother, a sister — this past month, “Friends are Everywhere” proved to be a universally understood truth.
“It’s a wonderful feeling knowing that your work has touched something inside another person,” Ryan said. “I think in both of our artwork, there’s a sense of life in everything. That’s how we came to the idea of our exhibition title; I really believe friends are everywhere, in everything.”
Written by: Savannah Anno — arts@theaggie.org
