Come Straight Home: 2026 Senior Undergraduate Exhibition

Come Straight Home, the 2026 Senior Exhibition at Stanford University, showcases the work of eight graduating seniors majoring in Art Practice. These talented artists: Kea Kahoilua-Clebsch, Grace Flynn, Nova Goode-Williams, Nathaniel Mensah, Zoë Rehnborg, Aileen Rubio, Jude Wolf, and Seiji Yang have each been on a journey of discovery and learning culminating in their thesis exhibition. 

This year’s cohort, through the mediums of painting, mixed media video installation, and sculpture have strong overlapping themes. Many of the students in Come Straight Home are quite literally thinking of home, mining their personal family archives to create work manifesting in very different outcomes including a large quilted together painting on canvas  and a video installation that uses AI to fill the gaps. At times the personal veers into the political, cultural or spiritual as portraiture and self-portraiture gets remixed with a luchador mask, layers of collage compositing multiple scenes on a single canvas, the spiritual form of the goddess, or even conjuring what it might feel like to be flung into a piece of glass. Forms borrowed from nature that become abstracted through their treatment, or abstract shapes that come to fruition through the process of their making feature in the exhibition with works that use suspension (as in hanging from the ceiling, or protruding from rods embedded in different found objects) to show delicate, geometric or natural forms floating in space. Some housing secrets of past life just barely illuminated by warm light. 

The title of the exhibition, Come Straight Home, speaks to the momentous milestone this event signifies, sparked by this shift from college student to graduate, art student to artist. Join me in celebrating these students and their accomplishments, congratulations to the graduating Art Practice class of 2026!

- Dana Hemenway, Lecturer, ARTSTUDI 249: Major Capstone

On View: May 26-June 4, 2026
Opening Reception: Wednesday, May 27, 4-6pm
Curated by Dana Hemenway
Coulter Art Gallery (McMurtry Building)
Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 12-5pm
Free & open to the public

Final Viewing: Sunday, June 14, 10am-12pm, 2:15-2:45pm (updated 05/21/26)
 

ARTIST BIOS

Kea Kahoilua-Clebsch (she/her) is a visual artist from the Island of Hawaiʻi. Her art practice is grounded in a love for her ancestors and ʻohana, who she gets to honor and know more deeply through her work. Through painting, she activates family and historical archives to bring her ancestors and the practices that sustained them into space and vibrant color. She has exhibited her work in multiple group exhibitions at Stanford and in the Bay Area, including shows at Et Al. Gallery, SOMArts, Kearny Street Workshop, and Bathers Library. She has also exhibited in shows at home on the Big Island, including the ʻĀina Speaks show at Donkey Mill Art Center. She is a recent recipient of the Homebody Fellowship at Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio on the Shinnecock reservation, NY, as well as the Chalk Hill Artist Residency in Sonoma County, CA.

Grace Flynn (b. 2003, London, UK) is an interdisciplinary artist driven by the desire to involve others in her own interior life. Inspired by the statement ‘make art for yourself, for if you make it for others, they’ll notice and won’t care about it’, Flynn strives to make work that is so uncompromisingly hers that others have no choice but to find themselves in it. Flynn is currently pursuing a B.A. in Fine Art, a B.S. in Human Behavior Design, and a Minor in Film and Media Studies at Stanford University, and her work has been exhibited in SOMArts in Oakland, Good Mother Studio in San Francisco, Gateway Gallery in Ocotillo, Escondido Music and Arts in Escondido, Crenshaw Skate Club in Coachella Valley, Anderson Ranch in Aspen, and Kindred Spirits Studio in London. Most recently she enjoyed her first Solo Exhibition at Gateway Gallery (2025). She has worked as a private studio assistant at Minnesota Street Project and enjoyed a co-exhibition with Naoko Tani and Abbey Banks at SF Art Book Fair (2024). 

Nova Goode (they/them) is a photographer, painter, and fiber artist from Richmond, Virginia, currently based in the Bay Area. Motivated by intimate connections with found family and friends, their work engages themes of connectivity and remembrance with a focus on Black and Brown communities. Pursuing a B.A. in Art Practice at Stanford University, their work has been featured by the Liberated Arts Foundation at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, and in multiple Stanford Undergraduate Juried Exhibitions.

Nathaniel Mensah is a mixed media visual artist from Ghana and Dominica working primarily with paint and collage, as well as digitally and with fashion. Having lived across four continents, their practice centers themes of unity through diversity across cultures. Nathaniel was part of The World Reimagined Exhibition in the UK (2022) and has participated in group exhibitions at Stanford University where they are pursuing a B.A. in Art Practice at Stanford University.

Zoë Rehnborg (b. 2003, Los Angeles) is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture and installation. Informed by her experience working in microbiology labs, her practice explores the ecological and existential dimensions of decay, with a particular focus on microorganisms as agents of transformation in both natural systems and human narratives. Rehnborg works with organic materials — soil, SCOBY, mycelium, salvaged wood, and beeswax — to create sculptural forms that engage processes of decomposition and regeneration, treating fungi and bacteria not as mere subject matter but as active collaborators in the formation of the work. She is currently completing her BAS in Art Practice and Biology at Stanford University.

Aileen Rubio (she/they) is a Chicane painter and sculptor from Brentwood, CA. Descending from Mexican immigrant farmworkers who settled in the Central Valley and Bay Area, their work explores portraiture amongst vulnerable communities of color during periods of intense surveillance and policing. Pursuing a B.A in Art Practice and double-minoring in Art History and CSRE, Aileen looks to brown and black art histories within the United States navigate maintaining a subject’s humanity without overexposing identity in the age of fascist surveillance. They are an Arts + Justice grant recipient and have exhibited in Flor y Canto and various undergraduate juried exhibitions at Stanford University.

Jude Wolf (b. Denver, CO) (he/him) is a visual artist graduating from Stanford University with a B.A. in Art Practice and a B.S. in Biology, and is pursuing a M.S. in Biology. His work centers the entanglement of the natural world and the human figure to examine the body as a porous site of memory. Through larger-than-life oil paintings drenched in color, Jude creates unsettling yet tender dioramas of his mind's ecosystem to resist legibility, the binary body, and simplified trauma narratives. Jude has exhibited in Stanford galleries, Et al. in San Francisco’s Mission District, and 120710 in Berkeley. He is currently an Artist in Resonance with the Institute for Diversity in the Arts and a Cantor Scholar at the Cantor Arts Center. This summer, he will apprentice with artist LJ Roberts in Providence, RI.

Seiji Yang (he/him) is an artist primarily working in sculpture from Palo Alto, California. He focuses on creating subjectless, interactive works that emphasize the value of being in the moment through the physical dialogue of materials. He explores how shapes, shadows, and structures interact to create tension, suspense, and imbalance. His sculptures are structurally sound, but appear to be capable of easily toppling over. His practice is marked by spontaneous and reactive decisions that capture fleeting moments. Whether through photography or meticulously sanded wooden sculptures, a focal point of his works is the process of seeking balance within a lack of structure. Ultimately, he invites viewers to engage dynamically with his works, finding meaning through interaction rather than a premeditated narrative.
 

VISITOR INFORMATION: Coulter Art Gallery is located at 355 Roth Way (McMurtry Building) on Stanford campus. The gallery is open Monday-Friday, 12-5pm. Visitor parking is available in designated areas and payment is managed through ParkMobile (free after 4pm, except by the Oval). Alternatively, take the Caltrain to Palo Alto Transit Center and hop on the free Stanford Marguerite Shuttle. This exhibition is open to Stanford affiliates and the general public. Admission is free. 

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