August/ AJ

Hi, I'm August Puplava (they/them) — a multimedia artist exploring identity, queerness, and the body through photography, print, sculpture, and installation. 🌿 ✨ A bit about me: I was born in 1999 in Northern Arizona, and I've lived in AZ, NC, HI, and now Boston. Each place has left something in me. Hawaii gave me a deep relationship with water and coffee, Boston gave me the Charles River and, unexpectedly, a real love for pigeons. 🐦 I'm currently finishing my MFA in Print Media & Photography at Boston University's College of Fine Arts (@bu_visualarts ), where I've been a Merit Scholar. Before this I earned my BFA, BS, and a Minor from UH Mānoa (Digital Imaging, Fashion Merchandising, American Studies). . 🎨 My art practice: When I started this program, my work lived mostly in photography and digital print. The MFA cracked things open. I've grown deeply into etching, image transfers, collage installation, and sculpture — and working with my hands, with material and chemical process, is where I feel most like myself as an artist. My practice moves between the intimate and the immersive, always circling back to questions of the body, visibility, and what it means to be seen. 🖤 I've always known I liked teaching, and the MFA gave me the space to really dig into it. TA-ing photography, etching, and digital printmaking has been one of the most meaningful parts of these two years. And then something unexpected happened — through an internship I fell in love with archives and cultural heritage digitization. It's a world I didn't see coming but now feels like a natural extension of everything I care about: preservation, materiality, and how we hold onto the things that matter. 🏛️ . ☕ When I'm not in the studio: You'll find me making coffee (barista by day, always), reading, going on long walks when I need to think, or sitting by the water for longer than is probably necessary. 🌊 My cat Opihi is the absolute love of my life. 🐾 And yes, I do have a soft spot for fat winter pigeons. 💡 Random facts: Favorite #: 3 Favorite color: muted green 🌿 Favorite book: Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson Favorite time of day: Golden hour 🌅 #MultimediaArt #PrintMedia #queerartist

"How to Know When It's a Problem" 30 x 24 in 2026 Digital collage, intaglio (aquatint/hardgroud/dry point/white ground/), interlaced kozo paper . Two panels of interlaced kozo paper, black and white. Intaglio etchings printed over digitally collaged medical diagrams, Kansas legislation, and news clippings. A driver's license: NOT FOR FEDERAL IDENTIFICATION.. . This work holds the cumulative weight of trans legislation, institutional indifference, and the body that keeps absorbing it. The title comes from RSI literature. It is also a real question. . Printmaking feels queer to me because it refuses to be finished. You press yourself into the surface and something comes back changed. The same goes for a body. The same goes for a life. . #queerprintmaking #intaglioprinting #kozo #mixedmediaprint #contemporaryprintmaking

Couple cute moments from thesis opening! Last week to catch it up!

✨ Student Show 2026 Feature: Boston University ✨ We’re excited to highlight three artists from Boston University featured in this year’s PRC Student Show: Rory McNamara, August Puplava, and Vic Ferreira Sardinha. Now in its 20th year, the PRC Student Show celebrates artists at formative stages in their creative development, bringing together work from 42 students across eight colleges and universities, as well as three local high schools across Boston. The 2026 PRC Student Show is fully sponsored by Stanhope Framers (@stanhopeframers ), whose generous support has made this exhibition and its related programming possible. @rorykmcnamara @makesm_art @vicfersard

It's almost time, can't believe we're here. 🩶 . What We See / What We Know . opening April 3, 5-7pm. On view through April 18. Stone Gallery, 855 Commonwealth Ave. . @pmp.bu @bostonsculpture @bu_visualarts . #MFAexhibition #thesisshow #bostonart #printmedia #installationart

So proud to be part of 42.3555° N, 71.0565° W ! . a cross-institutional MFA exhibition featuring candidates from SMFA, BU, and MassArt. On view from Feb 23rd through March 13th at the SMFA Atrium, 230 Fenway. Join us for the reception on March 4th from 4–6 PM! 🎨 . #MFAShow #BostonArt #SMFA #MassArt #BostonUniversity EmergingArtist GradArt ArtOpening Printmaking Collage MixedMedia BostonArtist ContemporaryArt ArtCommunity NewWorky

"For The Rest" 6 × 6 ft AJ Puplava, 2026 Plywood and assemblage of found and sourced materials including books, newspapers, archival images, prints, pillow, brick, and three artist made books . A space built through accumulation and repetition, where materials, traces, and moments gather. Collage has long been a way to notice patterns, hold fragments of experience, and give form to thoughts and feelings. This work leaves room for reflection, for the viewer to move through it, linger, and make sense of what emerges for them. . "hold this for later", ft. @pmp.bu @bostonsculpture Opening Friday January 23rd, 5:30–7pm at Commonwealth Gallery, 855 Commonwealth Avenue. . #contemporaryart #installationart #assemblageart #conceptualart #mixedmediaart queerart mentalhealthart

Jay Puplava’s (@makesm_art ) project looks into the shifting boundaries between bodies and landscapes through photography and print media, using time as both a material and a container. Through halftone screening, chemical interventions, harsh lighting, and transfers onto surfaces, they explore what lingers and disappears, approaching identity as a time-based process shaped by shifts in light, material, and perception. Jay’s work is currently on display in the Fluid Foundations exhibition at the Griffin Museum of Photography at the Lafayette City Center Passageway through January 5th, 2026. 🔗 Tap the link in bio and read our latest conversation with the artist! UPCOMING EVENT: The Griffin Museum is pleased to celebrate the work of Boston University’s Print Media & Photography masters students in their exhibition, Fluid Foundations. 🗓️ Join us in person at our satellite location, Lafayette City Center Passageway, on Saturday January 3rd from 2 to 4pm for a special artist reception.

Inchoate (a between here and then) 2025 . Inchoate approaches landscape as a form of reconstruction shaped by memory, loss, and duration. Through installation, scale, and suspended imagery, the work resists resolution, allowing place to function as an accumulative and unstable structure rather than a fixed point. . Thank you @dashtigohar for the amazing semester in Adv. Photo. . #Inchoate #MFAStudio #InstallationPractice #PhotographyInstallation #LandscapeAsPortrait #QueerTime #EndOfSemester

Final crit semester 3 done 👍🏻✅

Finally getting around to posting some photos of me in my studio thank you @01.drawing for these pictures 💖 . Also thank you to everyone who visited and continues to stop by!

Sharing some photos of this piece from my past collaborative show Interstice. I was thinking about how care shows up in small, everyday ways, especially from watching a friend and their partner support one another during grad school. That kind of quiet, mutual care stayed with me. . The structure pulls from HVAC systems and air filtration, connected to the idea of making something more livable rather than perfectly smooth or fixed. Breath moves between tension and release. Care does too. It is not seamless, but it holds. . This work includes a sound component as well, and I’ll share a link once it’s up @mrlesie . This was also my first time building something like this in the woodshop, so a lot of learning and support shaped it. I’m grateful for the people and relationships that keep teaching me how we stay with one another. PC: Miranda Pikul . #interstice #installationart #contemporaryart #soundart #sculpturalinstallation #newmediaart #artinprocess #gradschoolart #emergingartist #installationartist #mixedmediaart