University of the Ozarks art student Dylan Eakin will present his senior ceramics showcase, “To Make the World,” in the Stephens Gallery on April 21-26. A reception to meet the artist will be held in the gallery from 6-7 p.m. on Sunday, April 21.
Eakin, from Lamar, Ark., originally planned to pursue a career in portraiture. He only recently discovered his love for ceramics and sculpting.
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U of O art student Dylan Eakin’s sculpture, “The Cold Woman,” will be one of the pieces on display in his senior art exhibit “To Make the World,” scheduled to be on display from April 21-26 in the Stephens Gallery.
“I have an obsessive fascination with the figure,” Eakin explained in his artist’s statement. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve anthropomorphized the everyday things I see around me, from wood grains to disheveled clothes in a closet. In my junior year I discovered ceramics, and a figurative obsession joined hands with a ceramic obsession. I fell in love with the feel of wet clay, and the ability to shape it into whatever I could imagine. It, more than any other medium, felt limitless in potential. I realized that my two-dimensional portraiture was simply preparation for the sculptures I now create.”
Eakin sculpts mainly faces, and many of his pieces feature older or weathered countenances.
“I sculpt forms that I find most exciting. I adore portraits of the weathered and old. I relish the wrinkles in their faces. I love to see a sadness or sickness in my forms. Though not all of my sculptures meet these qualifications, those are the ones I find the most joy in. I want the viewer to empathize with them, to feel sadness for them. Through them, I hope to achieve a more complete understanding of what it is to be human,” Eakin said.
The gallery is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. throughout the week. There is no charge for admission.
Topics: Art