Nine Cal Poly art and design students present This is Not a Couch, a group show at 750 Higuera St., SLO, the former Gaia’s Gallery. But if you want to see it, you better hurry. Its nine-day run closes on Sunday, June 21. The artists call themselves Big Artist Corp.
The artists—Maya Benham, Owen Isachsen, Liliana Monge, Cailin Nicolich, Olivia Pye, Sarah Tarquin, Tilman Stoppler, Lillie Turinsky, and Alexa Valenzuela—have “50 original artworks, varying in size and medium, ranging from hyperrealism to abstraction, highlighting their individual creative methodologies,” the collective announced.
“We hope that visitors and viewers of our show will feel excited by the increasing number of young artists in San Luis Obispo and proud of the initiative and drive we have to create and organize this event,” said Turinsky, one of the project leads.
The show’s title was inspired by a well-worn blue couch in the Art and Design Department and is a nod to Belgian surrealist René Magritte’s 1929 painting, The Treachery of Images, of a tobacco pipe with “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (This is not a pipe) written under it.
The artworks are for sale as well as prints and merchandise. You can follow the collective on Instagram @bigartist.corp. See the work 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily through June 21. Δ
This article appears in Winning Images 2026.
