University students trickle into the LaVerne Krause Art Gallery on the first floor of Lawrence Hall. Waiting for their classes to begin, they silently walk the perimeter of the room, stopping to admire pen drawings, charcoal smears and even a rainbow sprinkles piece.
The pieces are from University fine art students and are part of the Krause Gallery’s weekly changing exhibits that are displayed throughout the term.
Featured projects include “digital arts, fibers, photography, ceramics, painting and drawing, plus two weeks of exhibits of student work from programs taught this summer in Italy,” according to a University news release.
“It provides an opportunity for more art to come in and students can see more art,” said University senior Jessica Stapp, who visits the gallery at least once during each exhibit showing.
“I’ll be excited for the Italy mixed media installation,” Stapp said, who is an art major focusing in sculpture and ceramics.
This week features advanced drawing from last fall’s Advanced Methodologies: Drawing course, which explored drawing “as a speculative and experimental practice applicable to a broad range of ideas and materials,” according to Kate Nosen of the art department.
Sarah Hollars, a painting major who incorporated decorative sprinkles into her artwork on display, said the class focused on breaking the “superficial” barriers between drawing and other media forms, which students are taught to obey in beginning drawing classes, she said.
“That’s why I used traditional mediums, like paint, and untraditional mediums, such as the sprinkles,” she said of her three pieces on display that consist of vellum paper covered with gloss, watercolor, markers, pencil, charcoal and rainbow sprinkles.
Other pieces on display include graph paper with decapitated animal stickers, a watercolor floor display and realistic miniature paintings of everyday objects. Fourteen student artists participated in this week’s exhibit.
Brian Knowles, a graduate student focusing in printmaking, incorporated an old projector the University was throwing away into his wall-to-floor display of black repeated patterns in the shape of boxes, scaffolds and ladders on paper strips, he said.
“I’m interested in how systems in the world organize themselves,” said Knowles, an ex-biochemistry major, of his inspiration for creating his piece on display this week. “It was experimentation initially,” he said.
The projector, placed on the floor at the bottom of his half looped paper, reflects light back on to itself and creates the image of a loop, Knowles said.
He spent months creating the piece and didn’t finish until 1 a.m. on Tuesday, after setting it up in the gallery.
“It would be a luxury to have it (on display) longer, but it needs to change every week,” Knowles said of the weekly exhibits. He will have work on display during week 10’s installation exhibit.
While more students are granted the opportunity to display their work with the constantly changing exhibits, some feel that one week is not enough time and two weeks would be more adequate.
“I felt like I set it up on Monday and had to take it down Friday morning. It didn’t feel like enough time,” said Daniel Sexton, a junior majoring in digital arts, who had work on display last term at the Krause Gallery.
“I come in here every week on Mondays,” Sexton said. “I like to see more drawings and experimental stuff.”
Next week’s exhibit will feature the Siena, Italy study abroad program’s mixed media display.
“They did small molds and castings of bricks and collages and drawings that are two and three (dimensional),” said Amanda Wojick, the professor of the Siena program last July.
LaVerne Krause was a University alumna of 1946 who returned in 1966. She founded the University printing program during her 20 years as an art professor.
The gallery is open Monday though Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
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