Beware of the Student Art Show these days. It might strike with impressions. Images from light and dark, almost psychedelic, corners of human consciousness are filling up the Boswell Hall Corner Gallery.
NIC students are exhibiting their fine art pieces 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. every weekday from April 10 until May 4.
Entering the Boswell Hall Corner Gallery, the first things one might notice is a brown crawling creature, a hybrid of a human and probably a lizard. “Shrouded” is a mixed media of Kyrstin Rushford.
Further on the wall, a ghostly hooded figure finds its place. Adrien White, 26, Coeur d’Alene, Philosophy, who also works at the gallery, considers this work the most impressive and points out the power in it. An ominous being depicted on canvas has its clowy hands hung over dollar banknotes.
The creator of this oil and mixed media “Identifine”, Mary Schulte said she addressed a concept of self-image in consumer culture. “The identity of the person under the cloak is undetermined within the whole realm of consumerism and the media.”
And next to the sinister cloaked image one would spot an angel, a collage by Harley Jene Adkins. Or no? The second glance at the winged creature is accompanied by the insight: the art piece presents a demon. “Vanity” reads the title. Dark muscular back, bald head, arms crossed in front of the body and enormous wings spreading over the canvas, composed of black and white print pieces, confront a colorful background.
The Students’ Art Show takes place annually as the final art exhibition of the year. It brings together two- and three-dimensional students’ art work created during the year.
The exhibition includes works made in NIC Fine Art classes, according to Allie Vogt, NIC Art Instructor and Hall Corner Gallery coordinator.
This show evokes more interest and excitement on campus than exhibits from single artists, said White. “Students are into this show as they are able to see what their fellows are coming up with.”
The Boswell Corner Gallery represents local, regional and national artists. “We look at creating a balance of representation and also a balance of different ideas,” said Vogt.
The adjudicator’s Statement at the entrance into the Hall gives away the fact the exhibition is also a contest. The signature of the statement reads: “Christine Kimball. Who once was in your shoes.”
Vogt explains students can submit up two art pieces per discipline. Their works are examined by NIC art teachers who determine if the piece is going to enter the exhibition.
This year Kimball, an oil and pastel artist from Spokane who exhibited in Boswell Corner Gallery in 2011, issued the awards this year.
“This was not easy,” says Kimball’s statement on the wall. “I looked for a certain amount of competence, strength and appeal to the senses.”
A mixed media “Reclaimed” by Fawn Rich has won the first place. Numerous elements such as welded steel, ceramic, moth and sticks compose the piece. Rich also incorporated slides from 1960s into the work.
“It is the interpretation of the native American cradle,” said Rich. The work conveys the idea that “no matter what we make things out of, life is fragile. Nature always takes everything back; so even if it is built out of steel, at the end nature will reclaim it.”
Judy Werre with her charcoal “Compromise” has taken the second award. The work pictures an enclosed space within a tent with the accent on a sleeping woman in a sleeping bag. In her sleep the woman is turned away from the lantern and from a male figure entering the tent.
The woman is Werre herself. The work embodies her personal experience of being convinced by her husband to go hunting in cold weather. This is a story about a compromise within a married couple. “I would go do something he loves to do,” she said, “compromise my comfort, being warm.”
The third place art piece resembles a slim black tower with grated windows at the top and steps leading to nowhere at its foundation. The metal, wire and mash sculpture bears the name “Meet me at midnight” and was created by Lania Cambron. It immediately reminds one of Tim Burton’s “Nightmare Before Christmas.”
“[Though] I am fond of his style,” said Cambron, “the truth is I was inspired by a different set of movies… I consider the sculpture to be a personification of the ‘Inception’ character Mal; elegant, whimsical, and a little bit off-balance, like something dark lurks under the surface.” Cambron also names the movie “Little Nemo” as the first-hand inspiration for the idea of “the transition between dream and nightmare”. “Dreams can be amazing and defy gravity, but there is always this feeling that things can take a turn for the worse.”
The gallery veils its mysteries in silence. But a visitor Chris Moollgaard, 27, General Studies, Coeur d’Alene, who used to be involved into musical art thinks “visual [art] can enhance the music.”
