This fall, a group of students met up at the small coffee shop inside of Lawrence Hall. Although they didn’t know each other at the time, they had one thing in common; all were accepted to showcase existing and new artwork at LaVerne Krause Gallery as a collective group. The first thing on the list was choosing a theme for their exhibit. As they excitedly shared their work with one another containing a diverse range of mediums, Jonah Gomez Cabrera said it reminded him of “a clusterf*ck of ideas.” Thus the name for the exhibit was born.
“The name was a funny accident, but I think it was meant to be. I feel like it represents our personalities not only as artists, but as growing individuals too,” Cabrera said. “Also, how pushy we are. We’re not very humble people per se when it comes to art. We’re very expressive, very loud.”
Calize Yepez, Bella Oliver-Steinberg, Tony Hooks, Mario Castro and Jonah Gomez Cabrera have spent the last couple of weeks preparing to launch their work. Not only did they spend countless hours creating, but they also spent a lot of energy pouring their hearts out. Through their pieces, viewers are able to detect profound vulnerability that elaborates on what it’s like to heal from hardship, be young, live in chaos and explore one’s identity.
On Oct. 26, the students held a closing reception for the “Clusterf*ck” exhibit. Students, faculty, friends and family walked into LaVerne Gallery and explored a space that was aesthetically untidy in the most meaningful way. If you didn’t get the chance to check out the exhibit, we spoke to three students who shared the intricate details of their work and lives as artists.
Name: Calize Yepez
Major: Art and Technology
Minor: Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Year: Senior
Collection title: All “Untitled”
Mediums: Charcoal, acrylic paint, spray paint, water color, paint markers, pastels, printed paper
Emerald: What’s your collection about?
Yepez: In my collection, I had two large pieces: three medium-sized charcoal drawings and a medium-sized artist statement. The two large pieces I’ve been working on since the summer. I spent my summer in Eugene living by myself in my apartment. I’m so used to having people around me so it was pretty difficult trying to find ways to keep myself busy at home. I’m also a person that tends to already isolate myself, so I was trying to maintain my mental health. On the canvases, there’s layers upon layers. I started off with a charcoal drawing that I wrote a bunch of word vomit on and then I just layered it one night. I finished them the night before actually putting my stuff up. So, the canvases represent who I am at the moment and me being able to overcome stuff. Since I finished them during a time where I felt more supported and comfortable within myself, I am able to see the meaning behind all those layers. Overall, my collection is about how life is shitty but shitty things are really beautiful. Emotions can be overwhelming, but it’s honestly nice for everything to be flooded rather than it being a drought.
E: What inspired your collection?
CY: My style follows Expressionism, and my top three inspirations are definitely Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Oswaldo Guayasamín. I really wanted to be more connected to my roots and I found Guayasamin when I was taking a class in Latin American art. He was an Ecuadorian painter and I really love the way that he expresses emotions upon a canvas.
E: What was the process like?
CY: It was a bit hard because art can feel so scary sometimes. It can be hard to be motivated when you’re just looking at a blank canvas with so many possibilities and no idea what to do about it. The times that I have so much anxious energy in me and I don’t know where to let it go are the times that I go to my canvases and think, “I don’t care how incomprehensible it looks. I’m just going to do whatever I want.” And it looks however it looks because I paint anything that my body feels good doing.
E: Why are you passionate about art?
CY: It’s always been an outlet for me. I have other outlets, but they’re not as good or as healthy as art. Art has just always been there for me. I’ve been doing it since I was in elementary school; I always carried a big journal. I love seeing other people’s work, and when you’re an artist and you look at another person’s art, you’re just like, “Whoa.” So it just feels like a very supportive community that I love to be in. So many people downplay their own art, but sometimes you look at a piece and think, “This is amazing!” It’s nice to see people’s interpretations and to also feel like supporting it. In that way, you feel validated and reassured within yourself.
E: What are your future goals and dreams?
CY: I’m not too sure, but I just want to uplift other people’s artwork. Specifically people of color and people part of the LGBTQIA+ community. I definitely want it to be more intersectional. I have a minor in women, gender and sexuality studies, so I’ve always been passionate about this especially as a Latina myself. I also want to perhaps create a gallery in which I can help younger artists gain confidence. I want them to know that they can do whatever they want as long as they really go for it. My future goal is to be a part of a community that is creative, supportive and that helps everyone enjoy life while finding ways to be financially stable.
Name: Bella Oliver-Steinberg
Major: Global Studies
Minor: Art
Year: Senior
Pieces: “The Town That Was Never There,” “Family Portrait,” “Census,” “Untitled” and “Beach Day”
Medium: Oil paints
Emerald: What’s your collection about?
Oliver-Steinberg: I make oil paintings. I would say my stuff is sort of dreamlike and surrealist. I paint a lot of people, but they don’t necessarily look like people. You can gauge that they have some kind of human expression. I like to do a lot of big pieces and create little narratives and little worlds.
E: What inspired your collection?
BOS: Themes of childhood. I take a lot of pieces from old kids books I used to read. My grandpa also used to paint. So, I often take certain figures he used a lot in his own paintings and I change them and put them in my own work.
E: What was the process like?
BOS: I always do quick sketches throughout the day. Sometimes I’m in class and I just have an idea of a certain figure or scheme that would be cool to add in my work. I honestly don’t really think about the process as I create. I kind of just have one central aspect to my painting and build around it. It also helps to step away for a day or two and then come back and work on it. I find that’s when I make the pieces I like the most.
E: Why are you passionate about art?
BOS: I’ve always had the urge to express myself through something other than words, which is definitely a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason I guess. In painting, you can make all kinds of figures just from shapes and colors, which is something that I find easier to do. Art provides a certain community and sense of identity. I’m also a global studies major, so a lot of the things we discuss in school are pretty heavy and can often be really sad, but art is a nice outlet to reflect on some of those themes and then also shed a positive light that brings people together.
E: What are your future goals and dreams?
BOS: I just always want art to be a central part of my life, whether that looks like a job that is focused in the arts or a creative community that I can always be a part of.
Name: Jonah Gomez Cabrera
Major: Art, Art History
Year: Junior
Pieces: “Untitled,” “My Son’s Doodles”
Mediums: Wood, plaster, found objects, roses, welded metal, spray paint, yarn, beads
Emerald: What’s your collection about?
Gomez Cabrera: My part of the exhibition was more about my personal journey growing up, especially my mounted piece. It was really personal to me. It has a lot of elements of my background growing up Catholic, thinking about my identity, questioning my identity and it’s all based on footprints. But it’s also a very nurturing experience because I added leaves on the sides and they were interconnected with each other, meaning that they were feeding onto one another. It’s about figuring out who I am and being grounded. It’s kind of like a free journey. It’s not really set in stone. It’s very organic. My “Son’s Doodles” was a more playful idea of growing up. It was meant to resonate with more people as opposed to my untitled sculpture due to the use of lots of color and yarn. It’s all very soft and not very constraining; just weaved around.
E: What inspired your collection?
JGC: My collection was meant to represent hope and admit that yes, growing up is messy. Growing up, you do a lot of weaves, but then you can create something so beautiful and keep looking ahead. I’m a very imaginative person, but I also love looking ahead. As a kid, I was always daydreaming. A lot of kids dream and it’s really sad that in this age they’re going through one of the worst time periods in history with so much genocide and hate. I needed something to relieve my mind and something that could bring me back the hope that was lost in the last few years. It was a very healing experience.
E: What was the process like?
JGC: Both of them, funny enough, were assignments that I had for my sculpture class last school year. For the mounted piece, the first process was to sculpt my feet in plaster. It was the most awkward experience of my life. The second part of the project involved integrating my plastered feet with a wooden component. I sanded it down then sawed it to make that curve-like aspect. Using my own footprints and seeing my own body parts as part of my work made it all the more personal.
The second one was a little bit more straightforward, though a more dangerous process because not a single speck of your skin can be touching the surfaces when you weld. Otherwise, you could get burned or electrocuted. I really wanted to do something abstract. I wanted to do something non-figurative just because I love playing around with space and textures. I loved exploring many colors, forms, and textures. Then, I welded the figure from bottom to top and figured out the proportions as I went. My dad has really good aesthetic taste that helped me choose what color of spray paint to use on my sculpture. If it wasn’t for him, I think my sculpture would’ve turned out differently.
E: Why are you passionate about art?
JGC: Art heals a lot. I’ve definitely explored the idea of self-identity for quite a while in my art. My passion for art and especially art history has always been one of those constant things that has never really left my mind. Art is something that I make and something that I put a lot of emotional energy into. It has been with me ever since I started transitioning in 2016 and ever since I came out. It was the only outlet I had to let all my feelings loose. I’ve felt so much anxiety, anger and resentment, which can be a really good byproduct of art. I’ve transformed these emotions into something more pure and healing through art.
E: What are your future goals and dreams?
JGC: I want to keep working to get my art history degree, but I truly want to be an art curator. If not that, then an art history professor. I think that the art curating industry is very white-centric and very cis-male. I want to break that cycle as a first generation immigrant, transgender, gay curator. Last summer, I managed to get an internship with the Portland Art Museum and I got to curate works from other artists. That experience of being in an art museum, talking to other curators and talking to artists just motivates me even more to promote their art. I don’t speak for them; they speak for themselves. I’m just there to amplify their voices when they need it most. That’s what I think my job as a curator is.
