Artists will talk about their work from 3:00-3:45.
Che Vita da Cani (It’s a Dog’s Life) Olivia Kubli
In the spring of 2016, I spent five weeks in Italy observing life there and taking note of certain cultural differences. One difference I found particularly interesting was the seemingly ubiquitous presence of man's best friend. In the United States, social standards and rules prevent people from traveling with their canine companions into stores, cafes, and on public transportation. In Italy, however, dogs meld into daily life. Dogs can be found shopping with their owners in a Louis Vuitton store, catching a Venetian vaporetto with their family, sitting in the arms of their person as he has a late night drink the local bar, or lying faithfully next to their master on a street corner as she plays the guitar for tips. Dogs, people, and rich, ancient history coexist in the wonderful, dynamic medley that is Italy.
Citizenship and Identity Iman Messado
A watercolor series exploring ideas of citizenship and identity.
Duality Amberly Wang
This work is dedicated to a close friend. My friend a multi-personality disorder. Because this other personality does not exist in the physical world, I wanted to document this other person as a record that they existed, if only in the mind of another person. This piece plays on opposites: male and female, black and white, upright and inverted, day and night. In many ways, my friend and the personality are opposites. They are completely different and autonomous from each other, yet they are still a part of one whole. I leave it to the viewer to contemplate which side is for my friend, and which side is for the personality.
I. Brianna Osaseri
III.
Brittany Osaseri
II. & IV. Brittany Osaseri, Brianna Osaseri
Since both of us aspire to be Medical Illustrators, the goal of this collaborative project was to set a foundation for where we stood at creating that kind of work with our own personal touch.
Gaze of the Harmattan Amirah S. Ndam Njoya
My artwork aims to explore the space between the portrait and the frame. Often portraiture is a painting of an individual staring straight into the camera or the painter. The space surrounding the figure, is usually plain--a landscape, or sometimes dark hues. In Gaze of the Harmattan, I explore the space between the individual and the frame using African textile patterns. The patterns sometimes engulf the subject or become the subject. In a way, they erase the boundaries between the human and the background and in the end both worlds, background and individual, coexist interchangeably in the same dimension.
Growing Up Ryan Brink
I have always had a fascination with the connection between memories, thoughts, and emotions with specific locations. This is a topic which I attempt to explore with the four part series "Growing Up." Each painting is an abstracted map of a location with which I associate very strong feelings and memories of growing up. While each work isn't necessarily centered on these locations, I have selected the compositions in order to create the dynamic sense of feeling and emotion that comes with the very active and engaging method of painting. The locations mapped in each are Door County WI, Minocqua WI, Milwaukee WI, and Iron Lake MI, each of which I associate with very strong memories of family and of growing up. The works are all acrylic on canvas with multiple layers making up each painting.
Guo Zao Olivia Howell, Wan Wei
This documentary offers a glimpse of the unique breakfast culture in Wuhan, China. Tourists from all over Asia visit Wuhan to order a dish known as 'hot and dry noodles.' This spicy breakfast fare is just one of many regional dishes that sparks interests and excites the taste buds. This film introduces Wuhan as a city, illustrates the morning meal scene, investigates the local dishes, and explores the effects of Western fast food restaurants on timeworn breakfast traditions.
HERstory in Motion Audrey Dangler
The journey—every moment counts. It’s not just Point A to Point B; it’s what happens in-between, the getting there, the expectations, the sights, the smells, and the bumps in the road. Life is a journey, and we only get to live one moment at a time. While in Italy, I focused my attention on each moment of my journey, not allowing the countryside to blur by unnoticed while I anticipate the destination. I recognize each mundane, ordinary moment. With pen to page, I create these ‘motion maps’ with the transportation dictating the movement of each mark. I want to capture the motion of the in-between places, the moments we often forget to be present for, so busy waiting for what is coming next. What about right now?
JOWL Collaborative- moneysofasnacks Olivia Sisson, Jack Blair, Wilson Miller, Leigh Ann Beavers
This installation and performance art piece will be a site specific installation that will be up for the entirety of the SSA Friday. The piece will consist of several shelves with jars full of individually wrapped snacks. A sofa on a platform will invite viewers to sit, enjoy, and share the space and time. This piece is meant to extend good will and art to the community with a bit of humor and light heartedness. We hope to make the Lykes Atrium space and the art housed there more welcoming and accessible to the university and larger Lexington communities. Items that can be taken from the installation such as the snacks, prints, and other art materials will also be on the platform. The experiential quality of the piece as well as photo documentation will document the piece's existence in the atrium space after the show ends.
Landscape #1 & Landscape #2 Justin Wodicka
When I have the occasion to pick up a brush without too much guilt, watercolors have offered me a welcome respite over the past three years of law school. There is something about having to acknowledge the inability of maintaining complete control over the movement of water on paper that puts the stress and competition of law school in perspective. Because the true color of a brushstroke is revealed only when dry, it is a medium that requires the artist to trust his or her abilities. Watercolor painting is intensely meditative. It is not like acrylic or ink, where a person can finish an area before moving on; the best work is created by slowly adding darker layers of color, pushing the levels of depth and detail progressively further, hoping the end will eventually reveal itself.
Route 60 Alice Cannon
A close look at the landscape on the route between Lexington and Buena Vista reveals a number of old buildings, largely empty of the businesses and industries they once housed. There is something intriguing about these timeworn structures. The rusted sides, the boarded up windows, the cinderblocks piled outside all hint at the stories of these sites. And for an area so rich in history one can almost envision that these buildings unassumingly stand as historical markers in their own right, complementing the better-known history of this place.
Stemming from an interest in architecture and an appreciation for Lexington and the surrounding area, Route 60 seeks to establish a sense of this area through sites that may have been forgotten or overlooked. I employ oil paint and charcoal on canvas to depict structures spotted from Route 60 - both the abandoned ones and the iconic ones still in use.
Succulent Garden Grace Bowen
This piece is designed to resemble a succulent garden in which twenty succulents are planted in close proximity to each other. I was fascinated by the varying types, colors, textures and shapes of succulents and wanted to focus on capturing these differences. Each 4x4 block of wood is painted with different styles and color schemes to highlight the array of succulents that exist in the environment.
Untitled #1 & Untitled #2
Justin Wodicka
These pieces were part of a larger study that explored how color and form could change with distance. A person's perception of a color changes depending on adjacent colors. In these two works, I wanted to overload the viewer's senses with color combinations, but balance that commotion with empty space on the periphery of the canvas. This in turn gives shape to the chaos, forcing the viewer to see a single form, and avoiding muddiness with clean lines, repetition of shape, and mathematical precision.
