Undergraduate Exhibition Response
Overall I am truly disappointed in Purdue's Undergraduate Exhibition as a whole. Aside from the fact that it is unjustly small compared to the vast amount of talented students that we have in our department, the uniformity of the exhibits does not exemplify the diversity of the students in the programs.
My favorite piece from the show was a close tie between Zoe Lang's Mixology project and Carly Conley's Fantastic Beast graphite drawing. Zoe's posters were colorful and interactive and kept me looking around them for new information. Carly's drawings were skillful and unique. The proportions in her mesh of creatures was impressive and also kept my eyes moving in a similar manner to Zoe's.
My least favorite piece was the photograph manipulation of "Girl with a Pearl Earring". The technical aspects of this piece were honestly just horrible. There were masking errors and halos around the subject's head. The concept of this work lacked depth as well. With most appropriations the artist is trying to convey something new about the original subject or concept. This piece did not add anything to the original concept and was a poor copy even if the goal was to just revamp the original.
Negotiating Duality - Dohgyoung Ahn
This was an exhibition in PAO hall of paintings depicting human figures interacting with each other and space. Some of the figures were done in local color, totally recognizable, others were deformed or merely suggested. I am taking a painting class this semester so we were encouraged to go and see this exhibition. Her paintings were exquisite. The glazes and colors of the paintings were so unified and beautiful and I loved the interaction of the figures together. I think that her work portrayed the disjointed nature of humanity really well.
Transverse Travesties - Sonja Peterson
This was an exhibition in the Ringel Gallery featuring large paper cut outs. The work was very intricate and depicted a lot of nature scenes. I think that this was symbolic because of the major focus on paper as the main medium and the fact that paper comes from nature. It's almost ironic in a way that she's putting nature on this pedestal and yet is destroying it in the process. My favorite part about the craftsmanship of the work was the small tears and extra paper pieces she left in that show that it was done by hand and rather than a large laser cutter or something to that respect. It gives it just enough flaw to make it that much more impressive.
The Red Sand Project - Purdue's Documentary Photography Class
This was an exhibition by Purdue's Documentary Photography class that I am a part of. We did this exhibit to help raise awareness toward The Red Sand Project and therefore to human trafficking as a whole. The project is to place red sand in the cracks on the sidewalk to symbolize the victims of human trafficking that tend to 'fall through the cracks'. Many of the students choose to take a different spin on this project by placing their sand in cracks and places other than sidewalks, but everyone that participated choose a place significant to the movement. I think that projects like this are really important because it forces the community to look at issues they might otherwise ignore. My favorite photo was by Veronica Murphy and featured red sand in the sidewalk outside of a hotel. This work was used to highlight the amount of trafficking that happens in hotels everyday and goes unnoticed or even worse, paid off by the employees there. Overall I think that the gallery installation was very nice however I would have liked to see more photos instead of the around 12 that ended up being shown, along with including everyones significant story that went along with their work.
Senior Show Exhibition
I really enjoyed this year's Senior Show. It's crazy the kind of work that people my age can put out and the sort of ideas that they can explore. My favorite piece by far was Dillon's Camel sculpture. The fact that it still reeked of stale cigarette smoke was the icing on the cake. It spoke to me a lot about the advertising nature of cigarette companies and how they target young people with these seemingly lovable characters that are actually made out of this completely disgusting thing. I really wish that we had access to a larger gallery space so that more work could be presented. I feel like there wasn't a lot of work shown by the students instead it was just one or two pieces, especially students in majors where the medium tends to be quite large like printmaking and photography. Sara's self portrait prints that are embroidered together in strips were mesmerizing to me. I had to look at them for quite some time to figure out what exactly was going on. I really enjoy how the theme of her hair carries throughout her entire body of work. I think that it is particularly strong.
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