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STUDENT WORK

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS / FINDING VOICE

Abstract Painting

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Lydia Gilbert

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Realistic Painting

Lee Meh

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Realistic Painting

Abstract Painting

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Abstract Painting

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Realistic Painting

Julia Poole

Figure Drawing

Printmaking

Ellen
Stowell

Nathan Godbey, 2024
"Anthropohubris"

This series reflects N.K. 's hunger to absorb the interplay between humans and their environment. By exploring our impact on other members of Earth’s global family, by tying together the impact on our shared ecosystems, and the impact on our fellow humans. Hubris is often defined as violating the natural order in a way that creates a victim to the pleasure of an abuser. N.K. focuses, not the hubris of individuals, but the hubris of the collective modern human systems that value complacency and comfort. The victims of these systems, setup by our society’s most influential actors, are entire communities of people and the ecosystems that support us all.
Primarily employing traditional painting mediums, N.K. seeks to combine familiar figurative imagery with abstracted symbolic forms, conveying a comfort interrupted by a creeping sense of the presence of a violation of the natural. Whether from pigment and binder, metal, textile, plastic, wood or clay, they hope to grant the viewer a perspective that the traits we should value most in humanity are traits that honor and empower, not just our siblings, but our home planet and all of our cousins who reside here.

Alanna Perrell, 2024

I use my work to showcase the ways in which members of rural communities have an intimate relationship with mortality due to their closeness to the natural world. Impermanence is a characteristic of the natural world, highlighting the fleeting nature of mortality and denotes death as a hallmark of life. I use horror imagery, not in a way to extract fear from the viewer, but rather as a tool to showcase the transitory nature of life itself. The fluidity and detail that paints and inks allow are used to portray somatic imagery which grounds rural life to the human experience.

Members of small southern communities experience an unwilling immersion into religion that is emblematic within rural communities. Unrelenting faith in a rural community can both be hopeful for some populace, but also serve as reminders of promised fire and brimstone. Under the guise of southern charm, the bruteness of life itself is masked, but by evoking visceral, bodily imagery the viewer can defamiliarize themselves with what they once thought of rural life and become acquainted with its multifaceted truth.

Kayana Hartsfeld, 2023

As a member of a very creative family becoming a Studio Art Major seemed natural and was supported. Being the youngest of four siblings and apart of a non traditional family, I have learned to go my own way in life and to not be afraid to share my story. They
always say life imitates art well I want my art to imitate my life. I want to show how my family looks, is made up, and how they formed me into who I am through exploring mixed media. The mixed media can also play into how my family is made of many layers and how different types of people reacting to each other is similar to how different
mediums react to one another. In the process I wanted to learn things about my family and about myself that I didn't know before beginning the projects. I think my series will help me find out more about myself and how I communicate as an artist. I have found that when I am having strong emotions while creating a piece my work reflects it. I don't
always have a direct plan of how I want a piece to turn out but more of an idea of how I will create it into something that shares my idea. This is true even within this series; I have many ideas, feelings, and dynamics I want to get across. When I start to plan out pieces I am thinking of many at once and when I begin working that is when I know which one I am creating at the time.

Lee Meh, 2023

Even after spending more than half of my life in the United States, I still feel disconnected and uncertain about my surroundings. A descendant of minorities who have been involved in civil war for over 75 years and are still ongoing. My parents are from Myanmar
(Burma), but we never considered ourselves Burmese because its militaries were
continually trying to clear us out. In the mid-1990s, my parents fled to a Thai refugee camp, where I was born. My entire world, my home, and the happiest place to be was the
refugee camp. Little did I know about the outside world, and even less did I know about my parents' struggles while trapped in that camp. I wasn't introduced to the arts until I
was in my teens, but my father's perfectly rounded words and house drawings for his kindergarten class captivated me. In 2009, we moved to the United States and settled in
Winston-Salem. Fine arts were not a big part of my life until I went to Salem College. As a studio art student, I spent the majority of my time assisting in my Karenni community and with the Karenni people. I'm working with different media and trying to find my style by
drawing inspiration and subjects from a Karenni sub-group named Kayah. I have been concentrating on telling my stories as a refugee and my culture as a Kayah (Karenni) young adult living in a third-world country through my artwork. I'll keep searching for my style while focusing on reflecting on my culture and the unwritten stories of my people. My purpose with my work is to portray my roots and stories through it.

Lydia Gilbert, 2023

“Since I was a child I was always looking for a pen and paper. I knew from an early age what I wanted to do when I grew up. I wanted to make things.”

By pure chance, I found myself at a new high school for my senior year. It was at that point that I poured all of my focus and energy into learning art and photography. Through
my journey in art, I’ve been able to express the parts of me that are hard to accept. I’ve destroyed and deconstructed myself to the point of rebuilding., In all of that pain and
struggle, I realize the beauty and necessity in all of the chaos. The disorder brings about new beauty and perspective; just as wood has to be destroyed and burned to become
charcoal. My life is a reference of reshaping chaos into beauty, My work takes the failures and setbacks and brings a new artistic perspective. I utilize materials to create
meaning within my work pushing its dimensions and perspectives. I use digital tools to enhance my technical skills in painting, drawing, and sculpting.

Brandy Hunter, 2023

I draw, paint and recently started sculpture. I have a love of colors, lines and shapes. With my impulsivity I can get inspiration from anything. A song that I’ve heard a thousand times can spark something the next time I listen to it. It can be a word, sentence, title or
beat in that song. I can see a color that I see all of the time, but something at that time catches my eye and sparks inspiration. I don’t question it, I just get it out. I recently got diagnosed with ADHD and slight dyslexia. Learning this has given me some insight on how I do my art. My ADHD fills my brain at all times with inattentiveness, hyperactivity
and impulsiveness, therefore my art is all over the place. When I view my art it's through the lens of ADHD. My art is where my impulsiveness takes control. My impulsivity
causes me to see/hear something that triggers an idea. Then it becomes an
unconscious thought that I have to put together like a puzzle. When I become conscious of my thoughts I become stuck and hyper focused on whatever isn’t fitting. Only when I stop trying to focus, put it back to an unconsciousness, do all the pieces fit. My goal is to just get whatever is in my head out. When someone views it they get whatever they need out of it.

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