Each fall semester students from all across campus and disciplines are invited to submit artwork for a professionally juried exhibition. Selected works of art are shown in the main gallery in the University of Wyoming Art Museum.
The works of art not chosen for display at the museum are invited to hold their own Salon de Refuses in the lobby of the Visual Arts Classroom Building.
“This was my first time submitting work for the juried art show and even though I know I’m accepted and I already dropped my work off at the museum and for some reason I’m still nervous,” Bachelor’s of Fine Arts major and UW senior, Peytin Fitzgerald, said. “I feel like my artwork and my body of work are both up to the show’s standard and more importantly my standard.”
Fitzgerald has been working with collodion plate processes and then translating those processes with the use of digital scanning to a finished print. Her content is an observation of natural surface qualities and the changes supplied by decomposition and the passing of time.
“It is really amazing and special for a museum like UW’s to have such a close relationship with undergraduates and with a visual arts program in general,” UW printmaking professor and artist, Mark Ritchie, said. “We do have some printmaking in the show which is traditional wall art but then you have students who bring a three-dimensional emphasis.”
Artwork for the show was entered through an online portfolio review site known as callforentry.org. Participating students were asked to upload at least three artworks with a corresponding image and description. The students were notified over semester break whether their work had been accepted or not and students were also asked to decide whether they would participate in The Salon de Refuses, if their work was not selected for the UW Art Museum exhibition.
Students accepted into the Juried Student Exhibition will also be able to receive awards based on their work. The museum exhibition opens at the art museum the evening of Friday Feb. 16 and will include the awards ceremony.
“There’s just something really exciting and raw about being able to go over and see the quote un-quote rejects and then see the artwork that was accepted to be in the museum,” UW Fine Arts graduate Lucas Pearl said. “If it came down to a vote I’ll bet some of them would switch places.”
The museum exhibition will be up until May in the UW Art Museum until May.
CORRECTION: The Branding Iron erroneously published this article referencing the University of Wyoming Art Museum as the University of Wyoming American Heritage Center. We apologize for any confusion that may have occurred.
