After an intensive jury process of art critique and judgment, the lineup of student work displayed in the Art and Design department’s Annual Juried Student Exhibition has been selected.
Photography, paintings, ceramics, sculptures and graphic design projects of all shapes, sizes and colors fill the space of the University Art Gallery for the student show, which opens today.
Regardless of their major, students taking any art and design course were eligible to submit their work to be considered for the exhibit. The competitive and prestigious aspect of the student exhibition comes from the two jurors who carefully chose approximately 50 pieces of art for the final show.
The jurors, Alex Klein and Arvi Raquel-Santos, both have extensive experience in the art industry and have been published and recognized for their work.
“(The jurors) spend a long day jurying, going through it to pick the best of the best,” University Art Gallery coordinator Jeff Van Kleeck said. “It’s very competitive.”
Van Kleeck said approximately one third of the submitted pieces were selected.
But those artists whose pieces are selected get to reap the benefits of their creative hard work.
“They get to see their work in a gallery, set on a pedestal, hung on a wall and lit professionally,” Van Kleeck said. “They are used to seeing their work in the classroom or pinned to a wall, but this will be a grand setting.”
Van Kleeck also said gallery shows are great résumé builders for artists, especially jurored shows such as this.
One of the largest pieces in the room was created by art and design senior Chris Iseri. The 6-by-4 foot oil painting on wood panels took Iseri about three weeks to complete, but only after spending the majority of the quarter going through initial pre-production processes.
Iseri used neutral tones of grays, browns and blacks to create a complex and captivating image that seemed to change a bit with each viewing.
“I wanted to portray a surreal landscape, with multiple dimensions existing at the same time,” Iseri said.
He said he used a combination of 3-D imagery and 2-D flatness to confuse the senses of the viewer, forcing them to try harder to understand the planes within the landscape.
Iseri’s work from last year’s Student Exhibition won “Best in Studio.” He said those pieces helped to inspire some of the work he submitted this time.
Kenny Sing, a sculpture artist and art and design senior, also had work displayed in both last year and this year’s Student Exhibitions.
The delicate details of his ceramic sculptures required a skillful hand, and a small crowd surrounded him when he described the intense process of creating the pieces.
“I’ll probably keep sculpture as a hobby,” Sing said. “But I want to go into branding and identity.”
His skills in the area of his probable future career are also going to be on display in the show. In addition to two graphic design poster-style projects, the identity he created for a winery made it into the show. The wine bottle labels, bottle tops and supplemental brochures and information were all purposefully designed to create a memorable and appealing brand of wine.
In addition to the inanimate art forms, one form of video art made it into the exhibit this year. A viewing station will be set up for audiences to watch the short film.
All student exhibition art will be on display through May 7 in the University Art Gallery, found in Dexter Hall, room 171.