The opening reception for the 2009 Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition was held at the Ronald L. Barr Gallery, located in Knobview Hall, on Thursday, April 2.
The BFA Exhibition is held every spring and includes artwork from graduating BFA students. The exhibition is a requirement for all BFA students.
This year’s exhibition, titled “Details,” featured nine graduating students with works of art in ceramics, graphic design, painting and drawing.
Debra Clem, professor of fine arts, said she liked the turn out at the reception and the artwork on exhibit.
“It was packed and the work looked really good considering the diversity,” Clem said. “It worked well together as a whole.”
Clem said she helped the students organize the show as well as handle publicity. She also showed them how to document their work and install it for the show.
“These students can spend hundreds of hundreds of dollars out of their own pocket to get it installed just right,” Clem said.
Despite the cost, the students also put in a lot of time in the classroom to produce their artwork featured in the show. Clem said by the end of their last year, BFA students are taking six credit-hour courses.
This year there were six graphic design students, three painting students, three ceramic students and one drawing student showing artwork in the exhibit.
Clem said the types of artwork exhibited vary from year to year depending on the graduating student’s concentration.
Graphic design is one of the biggest majors for the fine arts department, Clem said.
One student, Annie McCollum, drawing senior, said she was nervous and excited about the exhibit.
“It’s the first time I have shown my work all together,” McCollum said. “It also helps to get your name out there, which is nice too.”
Most of the artwork shown is the students’ most recent work.
“Senior year is the best work for a student,” Clem said. “As they mature they develop styles in their art and a set of ideas from their time at school.”
The themes for the works displayed vary from artist to artist.
McCollum said her big theme was animal species of Indiana that are protected or endangered.
Another BFA student, Kristy Ho, graphic design senior, said the theme in her art on display is about herself, where she was raised and her family.
One of Ho’s works on display is a ceramic piece in the shape of a gourd. Ho is from Vietnam and she made ceramic pieces in the shape of traditional Vietnamese wine bottles. She also incorporated pictures of her family in other pieces.
“She made her artwork more personal by adding pictures of her family on her ceramic artwork,” Ashley Turner, elementary education junior, said.
Laurel Streible, graphic design senior, has kiln-formed glass featured in the exhibition.
Streible said she doesn’t have much training in glass work because IU Southeast doesn’t offer much in that area.
One semester, though, she said she took a 3-D art class where the professor let them do glass fusing. Streible said she has continued to work with glass with the help of the fine art teachers.
To form her glass artworks, Streible said she has to use the kilns the ceramics classes use.
Streible also said the theme for her artwork is more abstract now compared to when she first started at IU Souteast.
“My daughter thinks it looks like coral,” Streible said. “It’s neat, though, that each viewer has their own perception of it.”
The 2009 BFA Exhibition runs through June 1.
By MARY LYONS
Staff Writer
marlyons@ius.edu
