Reflecting Pool: An exhibit of work by graduating art majors

By Katrina Staaf /// Arts Editor

Upon walking into the Hoffmann Gallery, I am surrounded by enchanting fragmentation. The wall straight ahead is covered with two vividly colorful, complex paintings. These Rauschenberg-esque canvases are abstractly layered and founded on pattern repitition. My left eye is drawn to a massive mosaiced eagle, its black and white simplicity illuminated by sun streaming through the gallery’s front windows. A glimmering sculpture juts into the space at my right, refusing to be ignored. I move around the amalgamation of clay, paper, paint, wood and holographic mylar, continually noticing new spots of reflected light in thin air.

These works serve as an enticing introduction to Reflecting Pool, an exhibit that highlights the talents and diligence of graduating art majors. Due to varied uses of media lenses of creativity, it is nearly impossible to collectively characterize this exhibit. However, many of its pieces are linked by a goal of lending significance to seeming triviality, of bestowing meaning upon concepts and instances that have become devoid of crucial context.

Taylor Wallau (’14) provides broken communication with permanence, employing oil paint to immortalize and visualize such severed phrases as “Yes it’s OK. And I know there are more but this one…” With ink and colored pencil, Camille Schumann (’14) blends human torsos with floral expanses, connecting these partial bodies to grander schemes of nature. Hilary Devaney (’14) offers concrete, personalized interpretations of phrases that tend to be vague as a result of their frequent and varied applications. Irene Zoller Huete (’14) turns identical circles into diverse vaginas, corresponding to written testimonies of experiences with the organ.

Two and three-dimensional work from nineteen additional student artists—expanding upon and diverging from broken cohesion— will be on view in the Hoffmann Gallery until May 11.

Katrina Staaf enjoys writing about various forms of artistic expression. She is editor-in-chief of The Umbrella and contributes diverse content to the website of Lewis & Clark College.