The 2010 Bachelor of Fine Art Exhibition features pieces by five graduating artists with dramatically diverse styles.
This excerpt shows 2010 BFA Exhibition works by each artist, from left, Elizabeth Herren, Dean Bucher, Julie Cikra, Erin Morlock, and Baylee Burrowes.
Herren’s quietly ethereal photographs, based in part on her study of Buddhist philosophy, focus on water as a metaphor for transcendence, tranquility and meditative experience.
By contrast, Morlock’s large, grainy black-and-white photographs of her family within the landscape explore the intricate dynamics of human relationships. Her work is made richer by her attention to poignant gestures captured when her subjects are most vulnerable.
Painters Baylee Burrowes and Julie Cikra could not construct more different approaches to both the medium of painting and the content.
Burrowes allows the medium itself to impact her final artwork. Pouring paints onto different strata, she creates works that reference the beauty of ephemeral, natural systems of flow and change acted upon by time. The puddling of the paints creates magma-like richness across her paintings.
Cikra’s spare canvases explore the voyeuristic impact of a brief glimpse into underlit interior spaces devoid of human inhabitants. These carefully constructed architectural spaces seem to echo with whispers of old conversations and empty hopes.
Dean Bucher’s amalgamations of found objects, beautifully silk-screened printed images, and dripped and painted surfaces reflect his concern for the economic plight of the Midwest. The physicality and immediacy of his work speak about the creative process and reclamation. Viewers likely will take away the underlying message that there is too much discarded material in the world.
These works will be on display in the Center for the Visual Arts Gallery through Sunday, April 25. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
For more information on the free, public exhibit, go to www.utoledo.edu/as/art or call the UT Department of Art at 419.530.8300.
