Donatellia Austin and Jandey Shackelford installed their work at the ‘This’ and ‘That’ galleries, two student exhibition spaces at University of Wyoming Visual Arts Gallery.
The 21-day long exhibition displays Austin’s and Shackelford’s artwork representing social issues and personal interest respectively in the form of sculpture, ceramics and print-making.
Austin, who recently was accepted as a Bachelors of Fine Arts student, is primarily a sculpture and a ceramic artist. She is getting her artwork ready on social topics that she finds important in the society such as bisexuality, environmental issues and her current piece in progress is about mass shootings.
“For the work that I have been working on usually takes a semester to make because that’s the way casting metal works and fabrication usually takes an entire semester,” Austin said. “Most work I have done took a three-month process.”
In ‘This’ gallery Austin will showcase what is acceptable in society from body modification to body acceptance. She will have masks on the wall, which will depict a scarification, facial tattoo and facial decorations, which are less accepted among society.
Austin chose this theme after she took a clothing and society class over the summer about what is acceptable in American society and what is not acceptable and found it fascinating.
“One of the things was that body decoration is a basic human replica instinct,” Austin said. “It is really interesting that in New Zealand where those facial tattoos are acceptable in society, but then it’s not here and I wanted to explore that as well.”
Her work also includes a death mask casting, which is a face made from ceramics. The casting brings out every feature of human face from thin eyelashes to tiny pores.
“This casting will be about bisexuality. Each one will be painted a part of the bisexual flag and then the way that the faces will look there will be a mirror behind it and it will look like the bisexual flag on the mirror,” Austin added.
Along with it, a piece about Standing Rock replicates her personal thoughts about how she felt when she visited Standing Rock. A piece named “Matelot Trinidad” is about beautification when she took a mission trip to Trinidad and Tobago.
Shackelford who is a senior at UW will showcase her artwork about her interests in candies at ‘That’ gallery.
“Growing up, one of my biggest things that I have eaten and still eat is candy and I really enjoy the shapes and the colors of them, so I wanted to explore why I am so addicted to it,” Shackelford said. “I also wanted to create an environment in which people would come in have the same feeling that I do going down the candy isle.”
Shackelford is representing her artwork at ‘That’ gallery. The walls of the gallery are all decorated with candy stamps and there are candy pieces made from Plexiglas hanging from roof of the gallery.The student exhibition spaces have many slots. Any art student who wants to showcase their talent needs to apply for the space to Ashley Hope Carlisle, Associate Professor of Art at UW.
The gallery is open to everyone during business hours. If selected, the artist receives a 3-week period in the next semester to showcase their talent.
The student exhibition reception will be held Dec. 1 where various senior artists will gather and discuss the galleries and art in general.
