The Tarble Arts Center opened this year’s undergraduate and graduate exhibition Saturday to a crowd of over 200.
Over 200 works of art were submitted by EIU undergraduate students for the undergraduate exhibition. The works were then juried down to just 85 accepted works by a series of jurors who are unaffiliated with EIU.
Alongside the undergraduate exhibition, the graduate exhibition opened in the main gallery of the Tarble Arts Center showing the work of current Master of Arts in studio art students.
Awards were handed out at the reception to several undergraduate students, including first place winners for each category:
2D & 3D Foundations: “Man! I Feel Like a Marionette Doll!” by Karina Warfel,
Advanced Drawing: “The Story of the Mother” by Chloe Flanigan,
Ceramics: “Hyacinth Daphne: Lovers of Apollo” by Erica Niemann,
Digital Art Image/Video/Sound: “No Human is Illegal on Stolen Land” by Oscar Aguilar Jr.,
Foundations Drawing: “Macro Moon” by Grace Walker,
Graphic Design Interactive/Motion: “Man Eater” by Sarah Brown,
Graphic Design Visual Communications: “Same Difference” by Jacob Owen,
Jewelry/Metalwork: “Blood Drop” by Faith Duggins,
Painting: “The Evening of Impending Doom” by Chloe Flanigan,
Printmaking: “Welcome to Bangkok” by Alexa Peters,
Sculpture: “Twisted Vessel” by Erica Niemann,
Sewn Apparel & Accessories: “Sweethearts Dress” by Bekah Paulsen,
Best in Show: “Human Vessels” by Faith Duggins
There were also many students who won honorable mentions. The awards were important to many people who visited the exhibition and attended the award ceremony.
“Having people being able to see my work and potentially being recognized for that, it’s not something that happens every day,” art and graphic design major Bat Sheets said.
Sheets said award ceremonies and exhibitions show the importance of art.
“Learning from other people’s work, taking inspiration and just seeing how everyone’s different creative processes turn out in the end, seeing everyone’s assorted styles can just be really inspiring,” Sheets said.
Sheets painted “Master Interpretation Composition ft. Queen Elizabeth II by Lucian Freud,” which won an honorable mention during the awards ceremony.
“What I had to do was take a fragment of a painting of his (Freud’s) and make a whole new composition out of that using color matching,” Sheets said. “So, it is an entirely unique piece out of someone else’s work. That was the assignment.”
Emily Bales, an art major, expressed the importance of art in her work and how she admires other artists’ works.
“I really liked Olivia Stout’s, a graduate student’s, work,” Bales said. “I think her process and the meaning behind her work is powerful, and the installation turned out well. Also, Emily Simpson’s paintings are just beautiful, and I am so in awe of their work.”
There were several pieces of graduate work featured including one that involves clothing.
Samira Dadson, a graduate student studying for her Master of Arts in studio art, said the reason behind her piece was the issue of clothing waste from northern countries like the U.S. in her home country of Ghana.
The importance of where clothes go is a significant part of the specific piece of work that Dadson put together.
“That amount of clothes just ends up being wasted, and it is going into water bodies, our landfills and everything,” Dadson said. “So, I am just trying to raise awareness and make people more mindful of how they dispose of their clothes and to be more mindful when they are buying their clothes,” Dadson said.
The exhibition helped raise more awareness on what is going on in Ghana and that made Dadson appreciate the exhibition.
“I’m just happy that people are seeing this and I’m happy to be able to raise awareness about the waste colonization that’s going on in my country,” Dadson said.
For more information on what hours the graduate and undergraduate exhibition is open, see the Tarble Arts Center’s website.
Chandler Smith can be reached at 581-2812 or at cbsmith5@eiu.edu.
