The annual GDS Spring Art Show opened on Apr. 30 and is the last studio arts show of the year. The exhibition is in the third-floor hallway.
The show includes pieces from students in all studio arts classes and spans the entire length of the hallway. Ceramics pieces are featured on pedestals outside the arts department, and paintings and photographs line the walls.
At the show’s opening, the ceramics club, Empty Bowls, sold ice cream in bowls students made to raise money for GDS financial aid. “I think the bowls of ice cream was a really cool way to get people to come and also have fun and donate,” senior Emerson Hardwick said.
Students in the UL Master Studio class made pieces based on current events. Junior Zoya Mghenyi’s piece focused on how the global demand for minerals contributes to the ongoing conflict and the exploitation of child laborers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C).
“[The conflict] is another not well known issue that’s going on in an African country, so I feel a personal feeling of wanting to talk about it and wanting to bring it to light, especially since it touches on the effects of colonization in Africa and how they’re still present today,” Mghenyi said.
Mghenyi’s multimedia piece featured a painting of a child in chains amid images of flames and warfare. Mghenyi highlighted lines about the conflict in newspaper clippings and pasted them on the canvas.
Mghenyi said the piece she made for the spring art show was different from others she made this school year. “For most of the other pieces, we talk about ourselves,” Mghenyi said. “When you’re doing portraits about identity, you already know internally how you want to depict things and what’s going to satisfy you. This one was about being able to go past myself and bring something else into the light.”
UL Ceramics students each focused on a single inquiry all school year and made multiple pieces about it. Senior Audrey Leff’s inquiry was “How does nature heal?” and part of her assignment was incorporating repetition into her piece. Her piece was a true-to-scale model of a beehive. “This piece connects to my question, along with repetition, because of the importance of bees in nature and how they help things grow and thrive,” Leff said.
Hardwick’s inquiry question was “What is an alien?” Her two pieces in the show, Sharks and Minnows—a bowl depicting sharks and minnows—and Tower of Reflections—a stack of multiple pottery forms of similar shapes next to a differently shaped form, focused on alienation. “Each form involved comes from the same cylinder shape,” Tower of Reflections’ label read. The label said the forms were shaped differently because they were formed in different environments.
“This year’s shows feel like a bigger deal,” Hardwick said. “I remember last year being fun, but not as many people coming. I feel like the students were way more involved in the installation and preparation of the show this year, which was a lot of fun.” Hardwick said the artists were allowed to put up their own pieces this year. “Sarah listened to us a lot,” Hardwick said. “We had a lot of say in where things went and how we wanted [the show] to be.”
“I think the GDS art shows have improved each year,” Leff said. “[Studio art teacher] Sarah [Riley] now brings a lot of energy and is enthusiastic about making sure everyone has pieces in the art show.”
“I’ve learned a lot about people through their art, which I think is really cool and beautiful,” Hardwick said. “I learn a lot about people’s identity and background that you wouldn’t find out about in a normal conversation. I’ve also learned a lot about the way people think through their art and how they capture ideas and concepts into a physical form.”
“I think going to more shows and having a constant inquiry question has made me more aware of how art looks on display when people are reading about it and looking at it in a gallery,” Hardwick said.
The exhibition will remain open until May 28.