ABOVE: “Caving” by Margaret Carr. Acrylic and oil on canvas, 65″ x 55″. Photo by Janna Bodnar // AS Review.
By Josh Hughes
On November 21, the VU Gallery opened a new exhibit called “Emergence” that will run until December 7 in VU 507.
The exhibit focuses on the 2016-2017 school year Art Studio BFA cohort, which is comprised of ten senior art students. This year’s group, which consists of Beaudry Allen, Jessica Bloom, Maggie Carr, Renee Cheesman, Kaitlin Howland, Vian Nguyen, Eleanor Ortland, Caroline Paulson, Kam Peck and Dylan Vogel, has work that ranges from painting and photography to mixed media and sculpture, all of which is on display in the gallery.
The exhibit is meant to showcase the artists’ emergence as creators and unique visionaries in the vast world of art. Since the cohort is only one-third of the way through their senior year, “Emergence” puts an emphasis on their continually developing processes as they work on their theses.
The cohort spends much of their academic year collaborating with peers and faculty to work on their artistic practices, and “Emergence” does an excellent job of showcasing the breadth of the cohort’s work. Shining a light on Western’s academic excellence, the exhibit gives a brief glimmer into the visual creativity and skill that exists on campus.
ABOVE: “Fall” by Eleanor Ortland. Acrylic ink and gouache on paper. 22″ x 5′. Photo by Janna Bodnar // AS Review.
Since this is an early show in the 2016-2017 year, the cohort gets a chance to experiment and have fun with the possibilities of a gallery setting. The pieces on display each come into their own, but they intermingle and coexist like any art in a museum must. The contorted, elegant, and monstrous bodies of Eleanor Ortland’s “Fall” juxtapose the slight body horror of Margaret Carr’s “Caving.” Renee Cheesman’s satirical and politically charged “Brain Dead” also plays on intense body imagery, even though all three pieces are distinctly separate in their own right.
Dylan Vogel’s photographs of gloomy, modern architecture parallel the muted palette of Vian Nguyen’s “Obsession,” and Beaudry Allen’s “Transparency Experiment” set of photographs sits alongside these pieces as well.
ABOVE: “Obsession” by Vian Nguyen. Oil on canvas, 48″ x 24″. Photo by Janna Bodnar // AS Review.
Interspersed are sculptures by Caroline Paulson and Kaitlin Howland, and in the corner of the space resides a triptych of enormous, mind-bending comic book pages by Kameron Peck. Jessica Bloom’s pigment prints finish off the gallery in their beautiful, subdued abstractions.
Most importantly, the work of the cohort is displayed here with effective curatorial decisions that help make each artist’s work pop out and stand on its own. These artists are sure to only further develop their style as the year goes along, but don’t miss out on this opening exhibit of the new phase of Western’s BFA students.