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Fine Arts Department seniors show ‘Engaging Variety’
Archive
The carrots arrest attention first. Suspended from a steel and wire frame, fourteen rows of bright orange carrots hang eight deep. Stamped in black ink on each carrot is the figure of a man, about five inches high, in a suit and a tie reminiscent of Ward Cleaver. The word “sold” cuts a swath across his chest.
The carrots were in various states of decay, some appeared freshly bought, others were shriveled and curved. Beneath the carrots sat a black-and-white television encased in the sharp angles and soft curves of molded plexiglass. The television eerily spewed forth the debate before the Florida Supreme Court on including the manual recounts of ballots in the final presidential tally. A bulge of plexiglass obscured the television dial and the station. This seemed to imply that network television (there was no cable in sight), like the political parties, had little to differentiate one station from the other.
“Sold” suggested the idea of television as a symbol of the great American sell-out to corporations. I thought of how network television, with its socially conservative and racially homogeneous shows and proliferation of ads, encourages consumers to buy, buy, buy. It can numb and placate us into a same-thinking mass, urge us as a people to sell out to money for a little bit of comfort, and willingly surrender our dissent.
The piece, by Amy Westover, seemed a sharp political and social commentary. The title, “Urban Sprawl, Population and Influences,” was ambiguous. The carrots could represent fields now gone and the “sold” real estate sign, as well as the societal implications, but it stretched to include all three. The fortunate irony of the presidential election on the television clearly augmented the piece’s commentary. Yet, even without that irony, the work seemed bigger than the artist’s intent, had perhaps grown beyond her reach. The title appeared to miss the clearest message of the piece altogether, perhaps by trying to encompass too many meanings.
That being said, Westover’s pieces were the most visually arresting and intellectually stimulating of the exhibition. Her other works include “Welcome Mats,” six welcome mats changed to read “we clone.” (How appropriate might it have been for the mats to lead up to the carrots, rather than run parallel to them?). “Boundaries I and II,” was the visual and conceptual contrast of dried reeds and a fence post, each encased in molded plexiglass.
Christopher Schofield’s three-foot-square, aluminum “Deer Vertebrae” was suspended from the ceiling and spun freely with light glinting off its shiny surface. It morphed — one instant it was a very large vertebrae, the next it was something out of Star Wars; as if any minute an Ewok might take it for a spin around the room, its dual and changing identity the source of its strength. Grinding marks arcing across the surface in careful patches looked much like brush strokes and added a further textural touch.
The show demonstrates the diversity of aesthetic approaches present in BSU’s fine arts program. Other works on display include digital print photographs by James Argo, Michelle McConville, and Kathie Eastman; graphically-designed scrolls by Michelle Holder; metal arts and lithography by Theresa Willhite; oil on canvas by Camille Strolberg; and mixed media work. by Nicole XXX.