Several post-baccalaureate students in the University of Wyoming Visual Arts Department took initiative to display their artwork this semester at the THIS gallery.
THIS gallery is located at the UW Visual Arts building and the exhibition will be viewable through April 13 with a reception held April 6 from 6-8 p.m.
“This is my passion, my life, what my soul [yearns] to live its life for,” Cassidy Newkirk, UW graduate intern and artist, said. “I want to be an artist. In a world where I’m constantly bombarded with ‘What will you do with art? How is that a career? So will you teach then?’ I find the challenge even more victorious when I can answer, I am an artist.”
Through the creation of a deadline and specific requirements, students had the opportunity to submit work to be presented in THIS gallery. The exhibition includes various paint mediums, photography, ceramics and printmaking.
“It’s definitely a new challenge, to having a set schedule, or someone there guiding and pushing you toward the ‘correct’ themes,” Newkirk said. “And the deadlines needed to be made.”
Newkirk uses paint as well as photography to create her large-scale photos that depict sailors’ injuries post-Pearl Harbor using light, color and prosthetic applications.
Featured artists searched for their own inspiration for their contributions to the show. Their pieces include various ideas and themes that they worked on individually to create a coherent display.
“As a naturally shy person, my studio practice is my activism,” said UW Graduate Intern, Teacher and Artist Erica Ramsey. “My content is extracted from larger dialogues about social justice, power, dynamics and visual theory. I make art about the world and I want to see it grow in the place of disappointments, injustices and violence. For inspiration, I pay attention.”
The artists each approached the open theme with different strategies. Each strategy leads to the unique development of an art piece.
“I am interested in the interactions between people and aspects of their environment,” said UW Graduate Intern Naomi Peterson. “And how documentation of those internal and external stimuli is a representation of personal knowledge. The work I create shows an anthropological approach to environmental influences that we react to and how that has a hand in shaping perceptions, personality and culture.”
Since these students worked independently to create an art display, their choice to display their work played a large role. It is always an artist’s choice to display their work or not.
“Since I approach image making as a form of activism, this aim is only achieved when I display my work publicly,” said Ramsey. “I believe that images are powerful and have the ability to persuade people on conscious and unconscious levels.”
