This coming Friday, a show featuring the work of 62 seniors in the University of Oregon’s art department will take the place of the usually architecturally filled Lawrence Hall with their year-end cumulative projects.
The second annual Spring Storm Senior Art Show will take place from 5 – 8 p.m. The program includes ceramics, sculpture, painting, digital arts, fibers and photography. Here are three artists whose work will go on display:
Lara Higgins
“My project is a continuation of a personal narrative that I’ve been investigating for the last few months. I’ve been working with the convergence of bodily forms, specifically hair and teeth, with mundane objects such as jars and even kimchi as a way to explore identity and convey potentially traumatic experiences of growing up. The result, I’m hoping, will be something that is both intriguing and somewhat repulsive to the viewer. That tension is something that I’ve been interested in.
“I decided to take a risk and apply to the UO’s BFA program, which is an additional year of rigorous art development. If I survive that, I’m definitely looking to get my MFA — after that, I’m keeping it open and hopefully will find somewhere I’m needed.”
Matt Ellis
“My project is called Treasure Beach Salon. The images were taken inside a beauty salon in a small southwestern Jamaican town. I was in the area on a spring break service trip and had the opportunity to spend an afternoon in the beauty shop. I was attracted at first by the bright colors of the space and then remained for hours because of the intimate conversations and welcoming personalities of the stylists.
“I have enjoyed the selection of classes more than anything. I have had access to such amazing facilities, and the faculty ensure students can pursue any artistic processes or subject matter they find interesting. I have had such freedom in my classes to explore and develop my practice as well as develop a meaningful artistic voice backed by the technical skills to bring complex projects to fruition.”
Pace Taylor
“My project is titled ‘The Things We Hold On To: A Compendium of Queer Ephemera,’ and it catalogs and captures a variety of queer ephemera from different pockets of the Eugene community and aims to honor and give space to everyone’s authentic self. This project is very much about visibility of queer culture for the wider population that doesn’t experience it daily, but is more so about recording my own history as a queer transman and the queer communities around me. It’s about honoring and appreciating the people behind the stereotypes.
“Personally speaking, as a queer individual, I am constantly seeking out threads of representation in mass media. I look for people who look like me and live like me and I rarely find that kind of visibility. That is why I was inspired to create a project that shows the little things that people collect and keep around — the small artifacts that remind us that there are others like us out there.”