Spring Break
URI art students display artwork in Main Gallery
Greg Gentile
Issue date: 12/2/08 Section: News
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URI's senior seminar class puts on its thesis show at the end of every semester. The show culminates the hard work those enrolled have put into expressing their artistic ability during their time at URI.
The pieces range from introspective photography to smoked banana peel sculptures to oil paintings with Italian influences, according to Associate Professor of Art Annu Matthew, who instructed the senior seminar class.
The students had free reign from the way the pieces were hung on the wall to what type of artistic expression and meanings they wanted their work to convey.
"We let them define their own projects," Matthew said.
Amelia Green showed the intricacies of nature at its barest while portraying it in a fairytale style.
By using a toy camera and infrared film, she picked up the invisible light, making the pictures of lakes, trees and cottages seem surreal, as if they came out of a black and white "Alice in Wonderland."
Brendan Sullivan's psychedelic painting had much deeper meaning than it showed at first glance. In the piece titled "Manifest Destiny," were hidden symbols like the Hindu elephant and turtle.
"The term applied to the whole chain of being…and how extreme consequences are inevitable," Sullivan said.
His painting examined human beings' destructive nature on the planet in a flowing fashion from left to right, with the world ending in total destruction on the right.
Jessica Gabeler's six black and white photographs labeled "untitled" examined in Gabeler's words, "the funny things women do to beautify themselves."
Inspiration came from splattering paint on her friend's face, Gabeler said. Her pictures use materials like moss and salt and pepper on a model's body to portray hair removal.
One of the more complex pieces in meaning is Tim Howe's photos of his idea of purgatory.
Growing up Roman Catholic, Howe decided to label all of his pieces in Latin, giving them an eerie religious look.
"This is Hell," Howe said, referring to his pictures. "It is a distorted reality, but with an introspective theme," he said.
Howe said that the pictures were meant to make the viewer uncomfortable, and for he or she to see into themselves.
Whether viewers like it or not, they will see themselves in the photographs.
Howe used a high gloss and reflective glass to allow viewers to see themselves while looking at the picture.
"It is an introspective theme," Howe said.
All of the pieces in the show compliment each other by showing every side of the human psyche possible. It is the expression of the artist's thoughts and ideals through a visual form.
"[Students] picked topics close to them, that interest them," Matthew said.
She believes this is the only way work will get done on one project for an entire semester without getting bored.
"There is a certain amount of pride," in seeing it all come together, Matthew said.
