Clarksville, Ark. --- A student art exhibit featuring artwork created by University of the Ozarks students will be on display in the university's Stephens Gallery during the month of April.
The exhibit, sponsored by OzARTS, the university art club, will run from April 10 - 18 as part of the university’s Artist of the Month series. There will be a reception to meet the artists from 6 - 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 11, in the Stephens Gallery.
On display are a mixture of 2D and 3D pieces created by the students, all of whom are either majoring or minoring in art. Elizabeth di Paola, president of OzARTS said the works cover a wide range of subjects, reflecting the varied interests of the student artists. "Students were allowed to submit more than one work," she said, "and many did submit several pieces." Di Paola herself will have several 3D pieces on display in the exhibit. "I submitted pottery [created] utilizing the horsehair technique," she said. "This is a low-fire technique that I learned when Professor Caldwell taught the alternative firing techniques class approximately two years ago."
Another 3D exhibit is a set of sculptures created by Tyler Rideout using aluminum foil. "The two sculptures are part of a group of aluminum men, each bent to represent an action," he explained. "This is done so that the viewer can feel the emotion of the character without seeing the face. This also shows you how powerful and important body movement is for communication."
A colorful piece depecting heart-shaped balloons was submitted by Dereana Pfeiffer. "My piece ‘love in the air’ is a fun piece about the different colors of love," she said. "This is represented through multicolored balloons that float through the atmosphere like different relationships in the world."
Madeline Hutson has three pieces on display, including "Mama," an oil painting that recently earned honorable mention at the CenturyLink Collegiate Competition and Exhibition in the River Valley Arts Center in Russellville. "’Mama’ is a painting of my mother a couple of days before my birth," Hutson said. "This painting is to honor my mother and her refusal to quit, even when things were hard. It symbolizes the past struggles that we came from, present success, and future triumphs in our family." Hutson’s other pieces are "The Beloved," a ceramic bust inspired by a passage from the Bible, and "On the Horizon," a black and white photograph.
The exhibit also features student photography, including some works created by Heather Neeley. "I have two photographs entered in the exhibit," she said. "One, a photogram, was made by exposing photo paper to light while adorned with scarves. It was a lot of fun playing with the different textures that can be achieved in photograms. The other, a motion shot of a street here in Clarksville, is the best of around thirty attempts to catch movement."
Several pieces created by senior art major Jessica Root are also included in the student show. More of Root’s work will be on display in the gallery later this month, during her senior exhibit.
Other students whose work is featured are Chelsey Becker, Dylan Eakin, Brittany Green, Abby Kern, Brandon Neal, Rena Niemeyer, Jenny Price, Carlos Ramirez, Lakyn Robinson, James Storer, and Matt Wellborn.
The Stephens Gallery is open to the public Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and there is no cost for admission. For more information on the exhibit, please call the Humanities and Fine Arts Division at 479-979-1349.
Topics: Art