Max Bickley – General Assignment Reporter
In the art gallery in the basement of the Buley Library, eight seniors from Southern have put their senior thesis and for some their capstone on display. The opening of the gallery was last Thursday and also featured other Southern faculty and students.
Chairperson of the Art Department, Dr. David Levine, spoke not only about his pride in the artists, but also the dream to have an actual gallery on campus.
“In all my years on Southern’s campus it was always a dream of the department to have a gallery for the Senior Showcase,” said Levine, “and now, we finally have it. Not only that, but we have eight great artists to display as well.”
Projects such as Carla Paiva’s “Nemophilist,” Frank Sollitto’s “Commitment issues,” and Beatriz Lopez’s “Synesthesia.”
Each project on display is incredibly unique from one another, from series of photographs to sculpture, to oil paintings and watercolors. One of the interesting points of Lopez’s “Synesthesia” is in its level of interactiveness with its viewers.
Synesthesia, by definition, is a phenomenon where stimulation of one sense (smell, taste, etc.) leads to experiences; for example, when hearing sounds one sees colors linked to that sound. The project by Lopez however, a series of metalwork sculptures and jewelry, applies this phenomenon in the work. Each piece in the series has a small iPod and headset attached, and when worn, one hears the music which was played during the creation of the piece.
In another display, senior and psychology major Carla Paiva brought the forest into the gallery in her exhibit entitled “Nemophilist.”
“The project title is ‘Nemophilist’ which means someone who haunts the woods, one who is fond of forest,” said Paiva. “I have always loved nature, and being able to bring nature into my project, with the fake moss and designing my project around trees and forests was great. It wasn’t something I planned, it just grew naturally.”
Paiva is not an art major, but she said she has always enjoyed working with sculpture, and that she herself had pulled her project together from pieces she has done in the past.
“I’ve always loved working with my hands,” said Paiva, “so I love art, especially sculpture. A single piece in my display could take me a few months to make, some of them are even from last year when I was working on them, although I didn’t have this project design in mind. It just happened to work out.”
Angelo Ramirez, junior, spent a considerable time looking at a series of oil paintings by Jennifer Crowley. Ramirez said that he could not help but be amazed at the level of work done, and continued walking through the exhibit.
“You can see the level of work in every piece, it’s incredible,” said Ramirez. “If you look up close, you can just see where the colors begin to blend and I can’t imagine how long it must have taken. I give props and praise to the artists for their hard work.”
At the beginning of the opening, Dean Breese of the School of Arts and Sciences remarked on not only the significance, but the place of art in our lives, which truly summed up the experience of the gallery.
“The world we create is only a reflection of ourselves,” said Breese. “Humans are the only beings on the planet who make art, we live for art, and we are the only animals who strive for art in our life.”