Reception: Karla Lagunas, MFA Thesis Exhibition: American Girl

LAS VEGAS, NV –

Multidisciplinary artist Karla Lagunas invites the public to American Girl, her MFA thesis exhibition on view March 3–14, 2025, at the Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery at UNLV. The exhibition takes on the weight of the American Dream—its myths, contradictions, and costs—through performance, video, painting, and installation. Lagunas confronts themes of survival and identity, challenging the roles we’re forced to play and the stories we inherit.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a performance taking place during the opening reception on March 7 at 7:00 PM. This performance, alongside sculptural and painted works, reflects Lagunas’ fascination with the tension between assimilation and liberation. The gallery will be filled with swaths of loose canvas, suspended and tethered, paint soaking into its fibers, weight dragging it into folds and creases. A covered wagon will sit at the center—fixed, burdened, waiting.

Lagunas, a first-generation Mexican American artist, draws from her lived experience as the daughter of immigrants to create work that is both deeply personal and shaped by the fractures of the present moment—where histories are rewritten, futures are uncertain, and survival is an act of defiance. Her practice moves across painting, sculpture, performance, video, and installation, responding to shifting landscapes—both political and personal—where identity is contested, and belonging is conditional.

The public is invited to attend the opening reception on March 7, 2025, from 6:00–9:00 PM, with the performance beginning at 7:00 PM. The exhibition will be on view Monday through Saturday, 10:00 AM–5:00 PM. Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery is free and open to the public.