Last night, the department of art hosted an opening reception from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. for the exhibition “Postmarked.” The event was held in the Colvard Student Union art gallery and the department of art gallery in McComas Hall.
The event served as a Bachelor of Fine Arts thesis exhibition for eleven graduating candidates. Ceramics, photography, painting, drawing and sculptures made up the variety of artwork featured in the exhibit.
Whitney Love, an art major with an emphasis in ceramics, spent around 222 total hours working on her 100 ceramics pieces, 70 of which are on display.
“Throughout my life my inability to control the things around me has inspired me,” Love said. ” I liked doing something that I had control over.”
Sarah Powers, an art major with an emphasis in painting and a minor in architecture, created the glazed artwork currently adoring a wall in the McComas Hall department of art gallery.
“I have been intrigued by glazes but as a painter I can’t use them. I wanted to create a painting while using glazes,” Powers said.
Brandon Riesgo, an art major with an emphasis in sculpture and graphic design, created word sculptures from everyday objects, such as socks or wooden blocks.
“I really like plays on words and I wanted to do something everything could relate to,” Riesgo said. “All the words emotionally relate to my childhood memory; however, these words are not so specific to my childhood that everyone else cannot relate to them as well.”
Grahame Snider, an art major with an emphasis in photography, took black and white photographs and strategically placed magnification lenses on them.
“My childhood inspired me,” Snider said. “As a child, I was visually impaired. In these photographs, I explored what I saw as a child compared to what a normal person saw.”
After attending graduate school, Snider would like to return to a university setting.
“I want to teach at a university level. I hope to inspire other students like my teachers inspired me. Art is universal – it speaks to everyone. It keeps getting passed from on to the next generation,” she said.
Adam Trest, an art major with an emphasis in painting, created several expressive paintings for the gallery.
“I wanted to explore the relationship between people – it was the main driving thing I was trying to capture,” Trest said.
After graduation, he will return to his hometown, Laurel, Miss., to work at a gallery and continue his journey as an artist.
“Postmarked” will be open until Dec. 1, 2009 for those who would like to view the artwork.