MANHATTAN —Kansas State University Department of Art will present the Digital Arts BFA Exhibition featuring Chantel White, Courtney Harrington, Dennis Lukowski, Jacob Berthelson, Grady Augustine, Melanie Shoemaker, Manny Gomez, Peter Rails, and Toma Griffey. The BFA show is on May 11th in the Alumni Center Ballroom “C”, from 5pm-9pm.

This event offers visitors an opportunity to discover how years of work have developed this group into the artists that they are today. They are working in a diverse range of digital media including Web development, video game engine experimentation, digital painting, real-time video, and many more. There will also be a group project that should prove to be an extremely unique experience for visitors.

There will be light appetizers catered by Kites, free to all guests! And a CASH only bar for those of you of age to enjoy a beer or red/white wine. Hope to see you there!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us!

Email: classgraduate@gmail.com
Web: http://digitalarts.art.ksu.edu/bfa/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/events/307869255949589/

MANHATTAN —Kansas State University Department of Art will present the fifth of five BFA Thesis Exhibitions of the spring season featuring Kaley Debrick, Toma Griffey, Beth Hanna, Aaron Logan, Megan Quigley, and Dustin Smith. The artists will present an exhibition of their work from May 7 through May 11, 2012 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 10am – 5pm, Monday through Friday. There will be a reception for the artists on Friday evening, May 11th, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm, in the gallery.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Painter Kaley Debrick considers her art making a risk-taking adventure, keeping alive the childhood curiosity informed by the privilege of growing up in the countryside with 40 acres of land to roam. She vivid memories of encountering her grandmother’s oil paints and considers her a major influence in becoming a painter. Debrick’s rich colorful oil paintings are based on studies of the natural world. They play with the idea of opposites; transparent verses opaque, pattern verses simplicity, tangibility verse ambiguity. The works relish in the intricate, insignificant and overlooked details of nature. Like the 40 acres she roamed as a youth, she invites you to wander, to look, to ponder. Like nature, her paintings always have something that invites investigation.

As a child, photographer Toma Griffey wanted to be an astronaut, the president, or a mermaid. She was advised that she could be either, or all three. What kid wouldn’t want to be a astro-pres-a-mermaid! Now grown-up, she has been unable to confine herself to one discipline dividing her time between Photography and Digital Arts. For her photography thesis work she uses her skills to alter perspectives and create images that defy expectations. Her images, super-imposing natural imagery onto the human form, demonstrate her interest in the way nature and humans were made to interact. Nature almost looks foreign when it is placed on the human body as skin.

Ceramicist Beth Hanna remembers, as a child, sneaking out part of her dinner to the mice that lived in the shed, bringing home every stray she found, or loving the carefree dandelions more than the narcissistic roses. Then she noticed the dandelions being sprayed with poison – labeled a weed, the mice were trapped, and strays went to the pound. It was from these early experiences that she saw the war that exists between the mechanical, industrial world of humans and the quiet, innocent world of nature. Her new ambitious ceramic work is a very large flower, arising from the depths of the earth. Installed in the gallery as an apparition of all the flowers that have been crushed and destroyed by the building placed upon it. The work represents all natural vitality extinguished in the name of human progress.

Painter Aaron Logan grew up in Northeastern Kansas near the small town of Horton. He was able to explore his interests in art through involvement in 4-H, a Grifted and Talented program, and the availability of college-level courses at the near-by community college in his high school years. He began his studies at University of Kansas, but transferred to Kansas State to include studies in illustration as well as painting. He has contributed illustrations and comics to the K-State Collegian since 2009. His figurative gouache and oil paintings relish in the curves found in the body and in the flow of human hair. While seeking beauty in the figure, the work also addresses society’s emphasis on conformity to social norms. His paintings attempt to question the ideal “Barbie and Ken” models in American society.

Growing up in Hays, Kansas, photographer Megan Quigley was a competitive dancer. She was constantly having her photo taken. She soon became fascinated with the artistry and control of the photographer as much as that of the dancer. For her current work, she has photographed exclusively in the botanical gardens at Kansas State University. Working with only natural light of the garden facility, manually controlling the focus on each image, she conveys the texture, shape, and many different colors of each organism. These colorful prints present a distinct aesthetic exposing unique and expressive objects and moments in time.

Sculptor Dustin Smith was born and raised in Manhattan, Kansas and surrounded himself with books about dinosaurs and bugs. After flirting with graphic design, he realized that he liked making objects with his hands. His large metal sculptures are inspired from observing the insect exhibits at county fairs in his youth. The work seeks to elevate the patterns and colors of the “insignificant” little creatures, but also address the disturbing yet intriguing way that they were killed and preserved for our viewing pleasure. The large metal creatures appear dark and lifeless, a former shell of what beauty they once carried when they were alive.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

Funded in part by KSU SGA Fine Arts Fee

MANHATTAN —Kansas State University Department of Art will present the fourth of five BFA Thesis Exhibitions of the spring season featuring Whitney Box, Garrett Kostbar, Shannon Nicks, Hunter Scott, and Victoria Tillson. The artists will present an exhibition of their work from April 30 through May 4, 2012 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 10am – 5pm, Monday through Friday. There will be a reception for the artists on Friday evening, May 4th, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm, in the gallery.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Growing up on a farm in Linwood, Kansas, photographer Whitney Box developed an interest in photography and cameras at a young age. She soon began experimenting with unusual scenes on the farm. While studying in Florence, Italy, she began experimenting with street photography, leading to a 2nd place award in the Lorenzode’ Medici Artists in the Streets competition. In her current color photographs, she seeks to find the abnormal in the normal. She accesses her idea of abnormal by revealing lifeforms in a moment of vulnerability. Consisting of left behind carcasses or other decaying objects from the world, these photographs consider the human relationship with the inevitability of death.

Photographer Garrett Kostbar grew up in Colorado and Kansas in a household surrounded by dolls. His mother provided a creative model by designing and making porcelain dolls as well as collecting. After first pursuing an interest in graphic design, he found his true passion in photography but struggled with content issues. A documentary film on fetishes lead him to explore more complicated and dark imagery that he fabricated from his imagination. Acquiring some dolls that his mother had made as well as parts of dolls – often broken, cracked, or disfigured, he has developed a process of creating imagery and setting up his own unique black and white still-life photographs. His imaginative world is one overrun with dolls, just as his house had been when he was growing up.

Metals artist Shannon Nicks grew up in Olathe and Overland Park, Kansas always involved in some kind of performing arts. While living in Turkey, she was first exposed to working with enamel on copper and became inspired, ultimately abandoning the performing arts for making art objects. In her current work, she has found inspiration in a diverse set of organic structures – organisms that attach and grow on top of other organisms. Her copper vessels focus on the beauty that can come from this relationship.

For painter Hunter Scott, whether it is architecture, decoration, apparel, or art, the idea of aesthetic beauty has always captivated him. Fueled by his mother, an educator, he became interested in Greek mythology and studied and copied imagery of greek gods and goddesses. This inquiry lead to ultimately being completely captivated by Botticelli‘s Birth of Venus. After a brief excursion into literature and psychology, he discovered that his true interest in art was still driven by his early exposure to classical traditions. In this current work, he employs a grandiose scale to reflect themes of excess and egotism, while the sumptuous medium of oil paint evokes desire and tradition. The works combine source material ranging from Baroque vanitas to contemporary haute couture ads, inspired by a milieu that praises the exquisitely decorated, while simultaneously criticizes the flaunting of material wealth. With this duality ingrained into his being, these paintings become a visualization of this internal battle: an attraction-repulsion to luxury and decadence.

Growing up in Manhattan, Kansas, sculptor Victoria Tillsonwas surrounded by a strong-willed and hard working family whose walls were lined with a macabre mixture of animals in jars, periodic tables, encyclopedias of severe birth defects and diseases, test tubes, and classical music records. Through good times and bad, art became a lifeline, it was a constant and a source of healing. The same inquisitive creativity and therapeutic escape through art has stuck with Tillson throughout her life and she found an application for it in the dirty physicality and problem-solving nature of sculpture. Her unyielding cast iron figures embrace, share, and celebrate an emotional struggle and defiance. Indications of the process in which the figurative sculptures were made, such as mold lines and rebar, are exposed to show a history of the piece just as our physical and emotional scars reveal the history of our lives and where we’ve been.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

Funded in part by KSU SGA Fine Arts Fee

MANHATTAN —Kansas State University Department of Art will present the third of five BFA Thesis Exhibitions of the spring season featuring Courtney Harrington, Armando Minjarez, Tyler Perkins, Jesse Smith, and Kate Trimmell. The artists will present an exhibition of their work from April 23 through 27, 2012 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 10am – 5pm, Monday through Friday. There will be a reception for the artists on Friday evening, April 27, from 5:30 to 8:30 pm, in the gallery.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Photographer Courtney Harrington solidified her interest in design and photography while working on her high school yearbook in Shawnee, Kansas. From there curiosity lead her to seek out the best photographers and designers for inspiration. At the same time she was becoming interested in the imagery she encountered at her grandparent’s farm. The old leaning barns or sheds are a particular focus offering distinctive character, and so many hidden treasures. But these older structures and equipment are slowly disappearing. For her thesis work, she is composing images of what the normal farm looks like today – it is mainly half old and half new. She also reflects this in her photographic process. She uses an old technique of film shooting with a large format camera with a medium format roll back along side documenting with her digital SLR camera as well.

Ceramicist Armando Minjarez was heavily exposed to music, theater, literature and craft as a youth in Chihuahua Mexico, on the northern region of the country just south of the US border. He credits his passion for art to his mother and grandmother – helping him develop a tactile and visual vernacular with materials and for fostering a more intangible set of artistic skills. His colorful ceramic and mixed media installation concerns the endless imagery that attacks the human subconscious everyday. His work addresses the creation of overwhelming amounts of consumer waste by-product, which is indiscriminately dumped onto our environment, negates any reverence to nature itself, and it destroys and divides healthy communities.

Photographer Tyler Perkins was born and raised in Southwest, KS in Dodge City where he participated in many drawing and painting classes as well as several small community art contests including a winning poster design for the Dodge City Round-up Rodeo. After studies in graphic design, he became more passionate for photographic images with the rural or western feel that he grew up in. His large color digital prints of abandoned rusty vehicles involve capturing light in specific timed exposures. This process of using light allowed him the ability to interact with the vehicle at night using a colored flashlight applying layers of different colored light like a paintbrush.

Growing up in a rural area, ceramicist Jesse Smith entertained himself through exploration of his environment and the objects that he encountered in daily life. He found joy in deconstructing items such as electronic devices just to see what was inside, often not getting them reassembled quite right. In his new ceramic structures, he is once again deconstructing common objects, but this time reconstructing them in ways that he finds formally and conceptually appealing. Through this process, the source object becomes abstracted and loses many of it’s recognizable features. Often, multiple elements from various objects become combined to create a new object entirely.

Growing up in Wamego, Kansas, printmaker Kate Trimmell just dabbled in art with a few sketches and some short stories. It wasn’t until later that she started to use drawing as a way to express herself. For her thesis work, she uses music as a trigger, exploring how humans incorporate familiar visual images to along with what they are hearing. The resulting unpredictable images draw a bit from Max Ernst and his graphic novel Une Semaine de Bonté (“A Week of Kindness”). It consists of Victorian illustrations that had been cut and pasted together. In the same sense as Ernst, she is creating new meanings by reorganizing images from the Victorian era. Her work differs from his, though, by adding her own graphic imagery to the mix.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

Funded in part by KSU SGA Fine Arts Fee

Admission is free and open to the public.

Peter Bodenham was trained in London U.K, where he received a BA in Ceramics in the mid-1980’s at Camberwell School of Art. In the mid-1990’s he completed an MA in Fine Art at UWIC, Cardiff, Wales. He lives and works in West Wales and is currently Head of Ceramics Department at Carmarthenshire College of Art. In 2009 Peter’s creative practice shifted from creating sculptures, interventions and site-specific installations to making utilitarian objects. This self-imposed creative challenge frames his current creative practice. Ideas are drawn from and about the phenomenology of everyday objects, the museum artifact and ideas about cultural identity. Inspiration is often driven by journeys on foot through rural landscapes and seascapes. Although Peter acknowledges the cultural distinctions between fine art, design, and craft, his work often sits between these cultural traditions. Bodenham’s lecture titled ‘Art & Utility’ charts his recent work moving from site-specific installation-based work through to utilitarian objects.

http://www.peterbodenham.co.uk

This event is a part of the Kansas State University Department of Art Visiting Artists Series for the 2011-2012 Season.

Funded in part by KSU SGA Fine Arts Fee

Image information:
1: Seedbed, ceramic, 2012
2: Rebecca, ceramic plate, 2012

By Steve Belz

April 16th – 27th 2012

William T. Kemper Gallery

Kansas State University

Student Union

Closing Reception

Thursday April 26th

5 – 7

stevebelz.com

MANHATTAN —Kansas State University Department of Art will present the second of five BFA Thesis Exhibitions of the spring season featuring Megan Burke, Jacqueline Franden, Anna Ginder, Christina Klein, and Cortney Ryan. The artists will present an exhibition of their work from April 16 through 20, 2012 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 9am – 5pm, Monday through Friday. There will be a reception for the artists on Friday evening, April 20, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm, in the gallery.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Printmaker Megan Burke was born in Wisconsin in 1988. Her prints depict the connections we attempt to forge in effort to close a self-imposed gap in understanding – the way we try to relate to each other in the midst of trying to figure it all out.

Ceramicist Jacqueline Franden remembers making pinch pots in elementary school and along with other creative activities this formed her interest in visual art – particularly photography and ceramics. In addition to her studies at Kansas State University, she studied abroad at West School of the Arts in Carmarthen, Wales. Her functional work is based on sophisticated forms with smooth surfaces which are dressed in regular yet intricate patterned surface designs. The surface patterns are informed by the designs found in quilting, fractal geometry, and rosettes.

As a lifelong Kansas native, photographer Anna Ginder’s first creative outlet was poetry. She discovered that through writing she could store her thoughts forever. A disposable camera soon replaced written words, as the resulting images could immediately be tacked up on her wall to fill up the empty space, not only in her room but also in the fading memories in her mind. For her, seeing something exciting immediately demands a possession of it. For her thesis work, she turned to portraits of people and their possessions using a process designed to create an uncertainty about the subject. She wants the viewer to speculate about the person and their chosen object and create their own narrative as to what it could reveal.

Painter Christina Klein considers the farm in rural Kansas where she was raised as a perfect think tank for any creative mind – with nearly an unlimited access to supplies and access to a large open space. The farm also inspired her early interests in depicting nature. However, a study-abroad experience in Austria and Germany inspired a turn to expressionist portraits and surreal architecture. In her thesis work, she observes spaces with unique architectural elements, tries to dissect them through her painting process, and invent unusual spaces that could not exist in reality. Utilizing multiple perspective and vantage points, she engages the viewer in the architecture so that each time someone looks at the painting, they can find something they may not have noticed before.

Photographer Cortney Ryan comes from a lineage of artists – both her grandmothers were painters. Inspired by their work, in her Wichita, Kansas high school years she was obsessed with making art. Later, her experience working as a studio manager in a Wichita photo studio confirmed her interest in photography. Her thesis work focuses on detailed images of the human body, showcasing how each body part is truly a unique piece of art. Through her attention to color and light, she composes the human body in a way that the eye doesn’t normally perceive it.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

Funded in part by KSU SGA Fine Arts Fee

Admission is free and open to the public.

Roger F. Blakley was born in Cleveland, Ohio and began his formal study of sculpture at the Cleveland Institute of Art. He has been involved in many national and international exhibitions, including many years at Pier Walk International Sculpture Exhibition and other outdoor venues. He is currently Professor Emeritus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After decades of working at mid- to large scale, he has returned to a much smaller scale that allows him to explore both a greater number of ideas and an increasing variety of forms and textural contrasts.

Cecilia Allen was born in Tuscola, Illinois. She received her B.F.A. in sculpture and M.A. in art education at the University of Illinois. From there she went to Southern Illinois University at Carbondale to receive an M.F.A. in sculpture. At fairly regular intervals, she has destroyed most of the forms and unfinished work in her studio and has begun again. These events often accompany or initiate changes in attitude or circumstances. It is akin to the natural periodic burn-off characteristic of plains ecosystems. As in nature, it serves to renew her thinking and growth. The last major ‘burn-off’ consumed the entire third dimension. She has turned from sculpture to drawing as her primary form of expression.

This event is a part of the Kansas State University Department of Art Visiting Artists Series for the 2011-2012 Season.

Funded in part by KSU SGA Fine Arts Fee

Image information:
Collaborative drawing: Roger F. Blakley and Cecilia Allen, Exquisite Square 3, 2010, mixed media.
Sculpture: Roger F. Blakley, cast bronze.

MANHATTAN – Kansas State University Department of Art will present the first of five BFA Thesis Exhibitions of the spring season featuring Brandi Crubel, Heather Sue Etelamaki, Kara Hulinsky, Brianna Sprague, and Cassie Wandersee. The artists will present an exhibition of their work from April 9 through 13, 2012 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 9am – 5pm, Monday through Friday. There will be a reception for the artists on Friday evening, April 13, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm, in the gallery.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Metals artist Brandi Crubel started making and selling jewelry when she was fifteen, creating her own small business selling her unique designs. Being raised around nature has inspired her. She take the simplest textures, shapes, and colors from bark, ripples of water, or feathers to inspire her thesis work in copper – forming vessels by raising them. She subsequently adds texture by means of chasing and adding patina with prisma color. She also creates jewelry using sterling silver, pewter with stones.

Heather Sue Etelamaki’s drawings explore the expressive qualities of mark-making using the grace and elegance in the lines of the human figure. Raised in Marysville, Kansas, just fifteen minutes from the Nebraska border, this location on a threshold might have contributed to her determination to give equal attention to her love of literature and visual art. Etelamaki is a double major also earning a B.A. Degree in English for Literature and Creative Writing. Describing her work as visual poetry, she thinks of drawing as its own kind of language – exploring the relationships between quick and more thought-out marks and how value and atmosphere create three-dimensionality within the language of the work.

Painter Kara Hulinsky grew up in Wamego, Kansas and won an art contest in 3^rd grade – the beginning of an ongoing exploration in art. In school, she would often gravitate back to the art classroom to work after the end of the school day. For her painting thesis, she creates unique surfaces and textures on birch plywood that include the wood-grain surface itself. While this work is mostly non-objective, many of the colors and textures found in her paintings are inspired by nature, such as the sea reef or landscapes.

Painter Brianna Sprague is from Hutchinson, Kansas and credits her creative family for her passion for art and spirituality. Encouragement also came from her friends, who often begged to have drawings from her sketchbook. Most of her thesis paintings are figurative portraits, merging the idea of inner dialog and observations with an outward manifestation of the inner workings of her head. Birds and vegetables serve as connection to people and are used as compositional tools and as content.

As a young girl, ceramics artist Cassie Wandersee learned the value of hard work on the family farm in northeast Kansas. Her inspiration for functional ceramics comes from being constantly surrounded by objects with a specific function, and she saw the respect the men had for those functional objects. Her use of red clay comes from regular family trips to New Mexico where she was exposed to the Native American pottery of the area – made with red clay. The Southwest region and her family’s background in the traditional cattle ranching world also influences her glazing choices, as well as the imagery and scroll patterns incorporated into her work.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

Funded in part by KSU SGA Fine Arts Fee