The Farquhar College of Arts and Science’s Seventh Annual Juried Student Exhibition is open until April 14 in the PVA wing of the Don Taft University Center, Gallery 217.
Art Major Chair Tennille Shuster, associate professor of graphic design, is co-director of Gallery 217 with Visiting Professor of Art Véronique Côté.
Shuster said the Division of Performing and Visual Arts hosts a variety of exhibitions, from solo shows featuring regional artists to national juried exhibitions. Only NSU students who have been enrolled in an art or design course within the academic year are allowed to submit pieces to the Juried Student Exhibition.
Shuster said an annual juried exhibition has been hosted in the gallery since it was founded in 2008.
“It offers an important educational experience for students to enter work in exhibitions, handle rejection or take pride in acceptance of artwork into the exhibition, prepare works for public display and even speak with the viewers about their work,” she said.
Shuster said the format of the exhibition doesn’t change, but each year is different as the students who enter it are different and bring new works dealing with timely issues to the exhibit.
“This year’s exhibit features more sculptural and three-dimensional work than past years, and it features some interesting, conceptually driven installation pieces,” Shuster said.
Shuster said, “The full-time art faculty each selected Faculty Choice Awards, Dean Rosenblum selected a Dean’s Choice Award, and the fulltime art faculty collectively selected a Purchase Award.”
Anh Nguyen won Best in Show for her sculpture “Patience,” second place went to Alexandra Israel for the digital art piece “Unraveling,” and third place went to Amy Adams for her found object sculpture “Sailboat.” The Purchase Award went to Jennifer Hicks for her pen and ink piece “Tidal Wave,” and Ursalina Aguilar’s acrylic painting and sculpture series “Ice Cream City” won Dean’s Choice.
Faculty Choice Awards went to Stephanie Johnson for “Army Men vs. Still Life” and Anh Nguyen for “Sweat Shop.” Honorable Mentions include “Daydreamer” by Karen Genovese, “Sweat Shop” by Anh Nguyen, “Guitar” by Roger Atangana, “Random Acts of Kindness Design Manual” by Amanda Choi and “Travel Poster Series” by Jennifer Hicks.
Jennifer Hicks, freshman graphic design major, said she created her Purchase Award-winning piece “Tidal Wave” as an assignment for a 2D Art class she took during fall 2014.
“The purpose was to demonstrate the many types of visual balance and use them within a comic strip,” she said. “Beyond that, I introduced a little bit of irony in that the beginning panels imply a ship on the ocean heading for danger, but the last panel shows that it was really a child playing with his boat in the bath tub.”
Her second piece, “Travel Posters,” which received an Honorable Mention, was completed with Adobe Illustrator as a project for her graphic design class, which she is currently taking this semester.
“It is a series of travel posters I created depicting San Francisco, St. Augustine and Philadelphia. I chose these cities for the historical charm of their older buildings and because, someday, I would like to travel to them,” Hicks said.
Faculty Choice Award winner Stephanie Johnston, senior graphic design major said her piece, “Army Men vs. Still Life,” is her attempt at escaping the boring still life cliché.
“I wanted to create something that I would actually want to hang up on my walls and didn’t look like a class assignment,” she said.
Johnston said her piece took about 12 or so hours to complete.
She said, “I was inspired by the image of the wooden drawing manikin, and, from there, I decided to create a composition that would be believable in scale, so I thought of using small toys to interact with the wooden manikin.”
“What makes it unique is that I created a still life that has a story to it with multiple interpretations,” Johnston said. “There is no one, correct interpretation of the painting. I want people to give their own meaning to it.”
Hicks said the gallery doesn’t have a particular theme because it showcases various works, all of which are of considerable artistic merit.
She said, “The gallery houses many different types and styles of art: 3-D ceramics and sculptures, 2-D graphic design creations and traditional paintings and artwork.”
Pieces were selected to be in the exhibit by juror Nicole Chipi, Arts Program Associate for the Knight Foundation, who studied creative photography at the University of Florida and received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Florida International University.
“The juror was given the freedom to select the pieces she felt were the strongest, and we only asked that she consider a variety of mediums, technical proficiency, originality and professional presentation in her decisions,” Shuster said.
Shuster said since it opened on Feb. 17, more than 100 viewers have expressed positive responses and were excited to see the quality work the students are producing in and out of the classroom.
“As student-produced works, you can get a sense of what is important to our student body right now, politically and emotionally,” she said.
Admission to the exhibition is free and open to the public; tickets are not required. For more information and gallery hours, call 954-262-7620.
