Artists in Residence

Jewel Tran is a first-year transfer undergraduate artist-in-residence majoring in Art Studio. They specialize in sculpture—working with ceramics, cardboard, found objects, woodworking, and metalworking—as well as photography, performance art, writing, drawing, and mixed media. They are deeply in love with music, especially 90s emo, indie, hardcore, and many other genres, and music strongly shapes how they think, view the world, and stay motivated to create. Outside of art-making, Jewel often takes walks through trees and wooded areas, collecting rocks and sticks and finding inspiration in the eerie beauty of twisted branches and towering trees. To them, everything can be art if you truly take the time to see it.
As an artist in residence, Jewel hopes to learn new skills through a community and shared working space that is entirely unfamiliar to them. They have long been fascinated by engineering and computer science and are excited to meet lab members and learn from their work, exploring whether materials, processes, or ideas from the lab can be transformed into something imaginative and creative.

Olka is a third-year art student and a Ukrainian artist working experimentally across painting and mixed media to explore transience, memory, grief, and complex relationships with nostalgia.

Hello! My name is Savannah Burger (he/him) and I’m a fourth-year Art Studio and English major here at UC Davis. I’m an artist who prizes having fun and being optimistic in a world often feels hostile. My artwork gives my audiences a peak into how I experience the world—with color, camp, joy, inclusion, and representation. I value making pieces that invite people to smile, even if the message of the work is something more serious or political. My main medium is oil painting, but I also produced a volume of work with intaglio, drawing, and relief printmaking.
This program attracted me because it peaks my curiosity of the unknown given form: the unexplored cosmos that envelop our Earth. The bridge of art and science holds endless possibilities of inspiration, inclusivity, and optimism towards the future. I aspire towards creating space exploration-driven artwork that possesses the same passion that the researchers have here in the CSER.

Outside of art, you’ll catch me hiking through the redwoods, reading sci-fi fantasy books, brewing my own looseleaf teas, and hanging out with my crested gecko, Bijou!