Come prepared to be illuminated by the creativity of narrative in this week’s senior art show. Artists Dana Schlingman, Julie Kocher, Lauren Mauter, and Kevin Scholl explore the limits of storytelling, meditation, legend, and design in their group show, “Means of Illumination.”
Visitors are immediately drawn into Schlingman’s children’s story stretched across three walls of the first room, and magazine cutouts are cleverly collaged over bright watercolor illustrations. While breaking the traditional mold of art gallery work, Schlingman’s story reaches the viewer.
“It was the most captivating story — it was beautiful,” said junior Ellene Sandoval.
Childlike innocence is juxtaposed with deep sorrow and emotion to create a truly redemptive and thought-provoking piece. The restoration of the girl’s kite into a beautiful light parallels the recovery process from grief and loss.
“Things are not what they should be, so I wanted to address that in a sensitive way,” Schlingman said. “There is a redemptive quality to the work.”
Several decorative drawers with card catalogs inside them hang on the remaining wall. Visitors finger through the cards as if they are in a library, and carefully examine the text. Kocher replaced the factual information of card catalogs with her own personal, poetic meditations.
Most of her pieces reinterpret the way we see nature and the landscapes around us. She said she was influenced by her trip to Baja, California last interterm.
“I wanted to discover and appreciate the nature I had access to without traveling to it,” Kocher said.
Each drawer contains three versions of a poem. Kocher reminds us that there are more ways of knowing something than just the raw facts.
In the center of the room are Mauter’s sleek, creative fashion designs. Tall, elegant dresses with dark, rich colors are a new look for the Art Gallery. Inspired by the world’s diverse creation accounts, Mauter designed each dress with a specific narrative in mind. The Egyptian dress has long sleek fabric flowing from the neck down past the toes, mimicking the current and rhythm of the Nile River.
Scholl’s photos light up the next room with their high saturation and intense color. The extreme facial expressions and exaggerated poses match the vibrant quality of the photos. Designed from men’s 1950s adventure magazines, each photo rings with social gender commentary.
The viewers were confronted with hyper-masculine stereotypes of male identity and prod the viewer to reevaluate his or her own perceptions of the subject. While the hyperbolic quality of the photography gave it a comical tone, the subject matter and questions produced by it were challenging and worth investigating.
From imaginative writing to deep meditation to interpretive design, “Means of Illumination” was a successful, sophisticated show. Each artist displayed exemplary skill and creativity within their medium while carrying meaningful thought projects. Those who visited were truly illuminated by what they saw.
