Author: atpack

Senior Show Exhibition

At the Dedo Art Gallery in Valdosta, the Senior Exhibition for the Valdosta State Seniors of the Fine Arts Bachelor Program had there Grand Finale. The Coup De Gras, the seniors held their exhibition, for the faculty of the Fine Arts program to show the accomplishments of their journey during the time spent as a student at Valdosta State. The show was to represent the skills developed and how they have grown as artist, but moreover as people. The students showed a variety of skills ranging from drawing to sculpture. The show was nothing short of fascinating to the viewer’s eye, as the viewers were able to witness a broad range of skill and artworks. The gallery was structured well, along with easy access to the artists in the show to ask questions, and the overall gallery had many successful artworks.

Throughout the gallery, there were many artist with a multitude of artworks by each person. The gallery was set up very well, allowing for the viewer to go based on size and subject matter.  The artist do not have all of the works they presented together, but are spread out, but the spacing helps to give balance for the eyes. The works hung from the walls and stood on pedestals, allowing to viers to be able to walk around and be entertained at every corner. It is almost like the gallery had significant form, allowing the gallery to appeal to the eyes, not giving way to boredom.

A strength of the gallery was the ability to be able meet with the artist, and converse over the works to be able to gain understanding of their works and contributions within the gallery. During this meeting, I met with Caitlin Sanders, and conversed over her works. She predominantly worked with encaustic paintings and sculpture, as she works from emotions and from a repeated shapes, drawing on her experiences from being younger. She states, “Patterns repeated shapes, textures and exciting colors play a majority role throughout my designs”, which backs that she constantly looks for the design aspects such as the ones stated above.Encaustic Painting is done by using beeswax with pigment added to create color then applied to the prepared surface. Sanders had Encaustic Paintings, all three labeled Encaustic 1, 2 or, 3, were based on the the flow of paint, over the organic like shapes. Caitlin stated, “It is not about the shapes, but the flow of the paint, which showed the emotion, and conveyed the thoughts”. It is to allow the emotion to escape and be free. The color choices were ones such as blues and greens. The blues representing the sadness that she feels that all artist deal with. The blues being her favorite colors to work with. She also used a green which is the least ideal color to her to work with. She does not like colors of green and how green aesthetically looks.

In her sculptures, the pieces were about being functional and having the repeating patterns. She worked from, as she stated- “geometric, repeating shapes, in which some inspiration can be drawn from other cultures that use repetition in the artworks, like the islamic mosaics.” One of her known shapes is the triangle, in which she works with on her Table piece, which on the top used triangular shapes.

Overall the Dedo Gallery Senior Show was full of wonderful artist, and in respect showed a even greater journey through the Fine Arts Program of Valdosta State. Caitlin is an artist that works from emotions and patterns to produce her works, which had strong compositions and great color choices. The sculptures had significant form, which kept the viewer’s eyes busy as the sculptures were observed from all sides. The encaustics were engaging, using monochromatic schemes, but were strong in the manners of how the colors worked together to convey emotions. The colors worked together, and helped to bring the composition together, as the pattern that the colors were place helped move the eyes up and down the piece, along with the dripping technique. The Gallery was presented well, with a easy to observe set up, allowing for the eyes to move freely, and the artist were easy to access, and gain knowledge on the processes and why they made their art. Lastly, the gallery was not shy in the pieces used and it allowed for a great display.

 

Andrew Pack is a Art Education Major in the Fine Arts Department of Valdosta State University. He was born in Savannah, Georgia and lives in Macon, Georgia. His artwork revolves around faith and struggle. Human strife is a major part of life, and having dealt with depression; he uses it as the fuel for his artwork. He draws from personal experiences such as sports that he played such as football and track, along with the enjoyment of the outdoors. The last inspiration is from faith.

Philosophical Art Show: Mixed Bag

By: Andrew Pack

   

The “Mixed Bag” group exhibition at the Dedo Maranville Gallery, Valdosta State University, is a show of contemporary artworks over social-religious thoughts.. In this exhibition, there are five artist and their names are: Max Adrian, Emily Culver, Elyse-Krista Mische, M. Paige Ward, and Xia Zhang. The “Mixed Bag” is about social issues such as “sexuality, queerness, faith, race, and death”. The artworks are a form of vulnerability in the process of analyzing the social issues. The exhibition has much to offer in exploring who one is, and how these artworks affect people today in our confusing society.

Within the gallery is an open space with sculptures distributed among the open floor on pillars, or display tables of sorts. The rest of the art hangs on the walls as other kinds of display pieces, such as paintings, pictures or video. The artworks are grouped by the artist who produced the works. This grouping helps keep the atmosphere airy and open. The gallery has an open feel, as if to allow conversation to flow and be open, like the show and the issues the artists attempt to convey to the viewers. The open space also makes it easy to wander about and take time to look at the pieces without seeing others immediately. It allows the viewer to focus and study the pieces.

Within each section of the grouping, there are artist statements among the works that explain the artists’ viewpoints. The viewpoints are the subject matter that the artist is trying to convey to the viewers. Adrian tries to look into the LGBT community and looks to understand the struggles in understanding one’s self. Ward explores the ideas of faith and what that means to humans in daily life. Mische explores life and death, and how that affects people. The other artists look into topics as well such fears and misplacement, but these have a strong representation throughout the gallery, and cover the most ground in bringing the works together without isolating one from the other.

First, Max Adrian and his artwork titled, “The Buddy Community”, is a fun play on the LGBT community. The work displays anthropomorphic type cats. The cat-like pieces sit in groups facing each other in a form of conversation. The works are made from vinyl, cloth, hair, suede, and some metal chains. The pieces take the sensual type materials, to be a form of community. Each group has a clique that they belong to, kind of like society, and how there are so many types of ways of identifying. Going off of identity, is the manner of how people view themselves as male or female regardless of body parts, or other factors. But in all reality, it is honest in how we are divided. The piece conveys this very well. The colors also help, as there is this form of a rainbow effect. Not all the colors are used, but the artwork does use the idea of the rainbow flag that represents the LGBT community. This also helps build the idea in a way, by how the LGBT community uses a rainbow flag. The community has a feeling of isolation, even though there is community. But the groups are chained to each other, as if they are shut out from the others, while resting in the same boat.

“The Buddy Community”: Max Adrian, Vinyl, Cloth, Hair, Suede, Metal

 Ward explores faith in her works, as most of her pieces relate to faith. She fabricates representational works, of a house on a firm foundation, which is called “How Firm A Foundation 1 and V”. These are two separate works, but are relative to the subject matter basically being the same. In the pieces the houses are made of wood with pins that keep the wood kept together. These representational houses are then mounted on top of a piece of cast concrete. The concrete is a firm foundation that holds the house up. The concrete is important, by relating to the Bible story, about where one should build their house. The firm foundation determines whether the house will sink. It is a matter of wisdom and how one cannot build there house on sand, or it will sink. But a house built on concrete will not be going anywhere anytime soon. It fits the context of faith and the Biblical story in how important the house is to be built on the firm grounds to avoid sinking. It is similar to faith and how one should have a firm foundation in their beliefs.

”How Firm a Foundation 2”: Paige Ward, Concrete, Wood, Pins

 The last artist is Mishe who delves into the ideas of life and death. The best representation is “Tether”, which is a great representation of life and death. The piece balances a strong representation of life and death amidst the turmoil of life. The usage of the sun and the moon shows the exchange of life and death. The sun represents life and when the sun sets, that represents death. The chairs work compositionally, as they balance the asymmetric piece. The asymmetry being how the sun and moon are in different sections and provide a different weight, but still has a balance in the piece. The moon being under the chair provides an idea of being under, like ten feet under, representing death. The other having the sun rising shows life, and it is above its chair. This lets it seem like one is rising or growing to get through the day.

“Tether”: Elyse-Krista Mische, Paint (Acrylic), Paper Wood

 Overall, the gallery is successful in conveying what the artist were trying to explain to the viewers. Some of the works are representational. But this allows the viewer to reach for an interpretation, amidst the social issues that are tackled. The pieces are very successful in the purpose that they were trying to represent in the gallery. The artworks are representational, but are right on the money in the representations of the subjects in society in how people interact with their faith and identity.

 

Andrew Pack is a Art Education Major in the Fine Arts Department of Valdosta State University. He was born in Savannah, Georgia and lives in Macon, Georgia. His artwork revolves around faith and struggle. Human strife is a major part of life, and having dealt with depression; he uses it as the fuel for his artwork. He draws from personal experiences such as sports that he played such as football and track, along with the enjoyment of the outdoors. The last inspiration is from faith.