Samantha Davenport tries to use everything imaginable when creating art, including cassette tapes.

Davenport, an art graduate student, used pieces of cassette tapes as stems of flowers. The art contained multiple flowers of the same creation to portray a bed of flowers in a garden.

Davenport’s artwork was on display at the Graduate Art Exhibit and Reception at the Tarble Arts Center Sunday.

Her piece “Star Power” included a large abstracted star.

Davenport said she strives to include abstract art in her pieces.

“I wanted to have a make-believe world,” she said. “It’s more fun.”

Erin Caldwell, an art graduate student, said she likes to incorporate nature into her art.

“I use organic growing forms taken from nature,” Caldwell said. “There is both a simplicity and a complexity to nature, and I wanted to emulate that.”

Marc Blumthal, an art graduate student, has a piece called “Diffraction Gratings” on display as well. He said he wanted to show light as a structure with the piece.

Blumthal used photos he took to get ideas for “Diffraction Gratings.” The piece included many stripes of different colors.

“The photos showed the way light passes through,” Blumthal said.

He added he wanted the piece to be an optical illusion and did this by using photos that contained 19th century light, which is more traditional and involves landscapes and contemporary light, which are more modern.

“I want people to get dizzy,” he said. “Paintings are about an illusion.”

Kathryn Neale, an art graduate student, had six pieces on display titled “Construct.” Each piece was then numbered one through six. She used oil and acrylic to make her pieces.

Neale had a question in mind for anyone looking at her pieces.

“I want people to walk away asking ‘Is this vinyl, is this print?'” Neale said.

Rose Eileen Dalcamo, freshman psychology major, liked Neale’s “Construct III.”

“I liked how she used the light from the gallery to show the materials she used,” Delcamo said.

Ashley Mefford can be reached at 581-7942 or at almefford@eiu.edu.

Family and friends congregate outside of the Tarble Arts Center after the Graduate Art Exhibit Sunday Afternoon. (Bryce Peake

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