Advising

Tori Allen

The work I have done over the past year was inspired by my interest in art history. My paintings call attention to the abstractionists of the 1950s such as Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler, and more modern painters such as Cecily Brown and Joan Mitchell. Just as those before me, an integral part of my work is both the size and physicality of the paintings. The large scale allows the viewer to lose themselves within the colors and textures presented. As an intuitive painter, my life informs my work, making it diaristic in nature. Although my paintings help communicate my personal experiences, I want them to evoke the memories of my audience as well.

Just as Mark Rothko once said, “I [too] am interested in expressing the big emotions-tragedy, ecstasy, doom…” I want to paint my humanity and allow a human reaction in turn. Unlike many before me, I have given names to my paintings, many of which are titles of songs that I connect with in relation to the work. I don’t feel that this takes away from the viewers experience but gives them an opening into my psyche. I found a voice through painting that others could understand and resonate with.

Andi Grillo

Narrative is an integral piece in crafting relationships. It organizes knowledge, defines personal truths and shares experiences, allowing us to better understand our own connections within a community. Simple interactions hold a great depth and beauty, seen through everyday exchanges that so often go overlooked. Inspecting these more closely, it’s important to acknowledge how the impact of these small events change, especially with a person facing trauma, grief, and loss. The way modern Western and primarily white American society copes with death is rooted in avoidance and awkwardness. Those in grief are expected to move on quickly and return to normal life, and while they receive external support, most of it lacks the empathetic experience to relate. Numbness and desensitivity are no longer acceptable excuses for ignorance. Our society has taught us not to ask for what we need, but to bend and conform to fit molds, instead of it adjusting to fit us. Without adjustment, we can’t communicate properly, we can’t understand others, and they can’t understand us, all merely because people are afraid of discomfort. The rift caused by this lack of communication is the focus of my narrative. Ranging from small instances of awkwardness to overwhelming moments of discomfort. These pieces explore the various experiences of my ongoing healing process.

Emalee Reid Hoyle

Many of the women in my family suffer from anxiety disorders of some kind and, I am no exception. Typically, it is something I ignore in my work, choosing to focus on presenting calming images that I could get lost in. This series however, is a delve into imagery I produce right after a panic attack, in the margins of paper as I begin to calm down. A form of introspection on the ever changing landscape of my anxiety.

To do this I employed several techniques I use separately, but never really together. Bright in your face colors, simple compositions, and character design. A culmination of simple techniques, to make the unpleasant palatable. In this, I hope to convey the starkness of a panic attack, and the calm after the storm.

The characters are waiting, for what I'm not sure.

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Jenna Judah

This work encompasses Northern American culture and its ideology that revolves around death. “What We Know” is part of a larger study in the search to discover and understand different cultures’ relationships, and sometimes disconnection, with death.  Living in Northern America I grew up with little knowledge of what is to come with death, as did others.  We as Americans (not all of course, but many) do not entertain the thought of the body remaining in the home for weeks after death, nor cleaning it, providing offerings, and so on.  Instead, I have observed a lot of symbolism trying to interpret the complexities of death.  Now, that is what I am doing: trying to make sense of us trying to make sense of it all.

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Hannah Matykowski

This work focuses on color and the relationship that color plays with each other on a page. Each piece is connected by using the same colors, but with different hues of that color. I love playing with different colors and finding different relationships that can work well and bring out the image and the story that comes along with it. While all the prints look the same from the next set of colors, they all match each other with their color plates and the different elements that are being used in each piece.

My work is also focused on the relationship that I have with art during this time. How my mental state is playing with the different colors and how those colors tell a small story of my time while at home with my family. Each color has its own meaning to me, showcasing that through my prints, helps me understand my own mind. This is all fun for me, painting, seeing my artwork change from black and white to color, and the experience that I have gained from my schooling to use for the rest of my life.  

Kelsey Murphy

Memento Mori’s direct definition is to remind oneself of death, and the inevitability of dying. Memento Mori is a culmination of both my fascination and studies of Victorian death culture and fashions. The Victorians used specific mementos in order to openly grieve and accept the death that surrounded them so frequently. The pieces in this show reflect multiple sides of the Victorian fascination spectrum, ranging from the abstract interpretations of death in Absorb and From the Corner of My Eye, to the more direct and representational forms in Inevitable. The Victorian era was a time of technological and spiritual experimentation, as they used these forms to explore the possibility of an afterlife, and to allow themselves to become immersed in the grieving process. By looking through a 19th century lens, I hope to place death in a spotlight that we do not typically see today, where the viewer hopefully becomes more aware of the fact that death surrounds them in multiple forms.

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Ceph Poklemba

"Glitter-Glitz|Gore-Horror" is a series of paintings, and sculptures in response to queerness represented in horror media, specifically media influenced by the Hays Code. The Hays Code is the informal name of the Motion Picture Production Code. Two of the policies within the code directly targeted marginalized people: first, “Films could only present ‘correct’ standards of life,” and second, “Topics considered ‘perverse’ cannot be discussed or depicted.”

I record my personal reactions to these films, the queerness, the characters, and their stories, and how these extend into the “real” world (Dracula, The Silence of the Lambs, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, etc…). I take colors and themes within the movie, or that have importance to queer identity, and pull them into pieces, working paint into cloth or on large canvases, sewing, tearing, piercing them -- to convey and visibly record the emotions I go through working on these pieces leaving a mark, as they did. I am reclaiming the monstrous, queer visage painted into media and reality as my own. Rather than being a monster the coding focuses on simply villainizing an expressively queer character. This is what I am given by Hollywood as a queer person, where I am either the monster, the murderer, or the victim.

MaKenzie Reed

Memories shape our reality, and we often live our lives according to them even if they are inaccurate. Although these memories are warped by time and experience, they remain the foundation on which we are built. The importance of these memories become increasingly relevant as we move into adulthood, whether we are conscious of them or not. I attempt to examine personal memories for universally shared qualities of our human experience. In addition to this, the work explores why we hold on to some memories more than others, and how these memories shape our adult perspectives.

Weiming Shi

I moved to a small town in Oregon five years ago from a city of 300,000 people in China.

Everything was different: The food came in a package, the bus came along only every two hours, the streets were empty of people, and the buildings were short. It was like moving from a mental-forest to a real- forest. Everything was new to me, some things were comfortable, but other experiences were strange. I think everything has two sides and I want to show people different ways of looking at an object or an experience.

My purpose is to show culture shock humorously, because humor helps me understand and come to terms with cultural difference. In this project, I am comparing two different cultures based on my personal experience. Most images in this project include food because food is an important part of any culture.

Alexis Young

Wire horses Series:

My work has been an exploration of the relationship between horses and myself for some time now. Throughout my training, I have been conflicted with the way people justify their treatment of these animals. My work has explored my own experiences with people and horses as well as my own turmoil about competitive riding. Not only this, but in my art, I want to express the beauty of their form. Horses have unbelievable power and grace but to know a horse and be its partner, someone it trusts, is something completely unique and spiritual.

Siena Paintings Series:

These paintings came from my time in Siena, Italy and are representations of the horse ties or torch holders you can see around the historical city.