About
Wilha Duncan grew up in Brooklyn, New York and recently graduated from USC in Los Angeles, CA with a BFA in Fine Art from the Roski School of Art and Design and a minor in Social Work and Juvenile Justice from the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. She attended the Yale Norfolk School of Art Summer Residency and is a graduate of LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in NYC.
Artist Statement
I am primarily a painter, with performance, puppetry, drawing, sculpture, cartooning, and sometimes video, taking supportive roles in my practice. I am still figuring out what my work is about. Something to do with love and tenderness and when things change beyond your control. I ask myself questions like, Can Societies Consent? And, How Can Everyone Have a Happy Ending? With these ideas in mind, I paint, draw, act out, and build social situations where something is not quite right. Everyone is happy, everything is colorful, it is all very loud, yet something is a bit uncomfortable, and everyone is in a deep state of longing. One aspect that is consistent in terms of content and materiality, is how the familiar is always nestled next to the unknown, leaving myself and the audience unsure of a squishy object’s purpose or why nearly irrelevant celebrities are hanging out with my mutual friends and acquaintances wearing sparkly shirts in rooms that are physically illogical.
Selected Shows and Honors
2026- The LACMA / Jefferey Deitch Inagural Art Parade (photos of my work here)
2026- L*** During Wartime BFA, USC Roski School of Art, Los Angeles, BFA Thesis Show
2026- USC Roski 2026 Annual Student Exhibition, Fisher Museum of Art, USC, Los Angeles, Group Exhibition
2026- The Last Corner Sun, USC Roski School of Art, Los Angeles, Solo Exhibition
2025- USC Roski 2025 Annual Student Exhibition, Fisher Museum of Art, USC, Los Angeles, Group Exhibition
2025- Ruth Weisberg Prize for Drawing
2024- Delicately Manipulated and Intimately Exploited, USC Roski School of Art, Los Angeles, Solo Exhibition
2024- USC Roski 2024 Annual Student Exhibition, Fisher Museum of Art, USC, Los Angeles, Group Exhibition
Press
Hyperallergic- The Alienated Aesthetics of USC’s Student Exhibition
Contact
wilhaduncan@gmail.com