Annual Student Art Exhibition Award Winners

The juried Student Exhibition was April 4 through 28, 2019. Featuring more than 100 selections, the annual event represents painting, art education, photography, video, sculpture, printmedia, ceramics, metals and jewelry, graphic design and product design.

Congratulations to Art Education major, Tanner Bosma for winning Best in Show for Into The Night (acrylic on canvas).  It’s a mesmerizing painting, realistic at a distance, but a closer look at the reflective night scene reveals the hand of the artist in each brushstroke. 

Second Place winter Gabrielle David’s Creek Bed is a towering tapestry woven with plastic grocery bags.   Made out of such ordinary materials, it’s truly refreshing to see something so satisfying visually made from everyday items.   

Congrats to Rozlin Opolka for winning Third Place! Her watercolor painting, Untitled, is a mind-blurring portrait expressing skill in proportion while also embracing fun, irreverent lines and the fluidity of the paint.

No less impressive, Fourth Place winner Samantha Kuhn’s Medusa! is so bold, dramatic, and regal! Props to the woman who can look so calm while a snake rests on her head! 

In addition to these awards, six students received the Eleanor & Robert DeVries Award for Artistic Merit.

In her triptych, Do Lesbians Dream of Scottish Sheep (Screenprint & laser cut on BFK), graduating senior Melina Wilcox plays with humor and ambiguity, drawing on her own familial history and experience to imply stereotypes within gender and culture.   

Although a relatively small display, Brianna Crofoot’s Headspace (mixed media sculpture) invites viewers to think about a deeper, wider world, from the people we are within, to the collective of humanity outside.  How are we similar? How are we different? And what can kindle the fire of unity?

The title Oshun (bronze, wood sculpture) references an African goddess, typically associated with life, fertility, purity, and love. This beautiful bronze form by Darien Buress also runs parallel to the widely portrayed and praised Mother Nature.

Background info: Oshun is an African goddess, typically associated with water, life, fertility, and love.

The deep, calming purples in Kayla Battle, Wrapped (Digital print/graphic design) lend a rich, sumptuous atmosphere while pops of yellow and orange highlight the many different African head wraps seen in fashion today, each with their own cultural uses and meanings.  

Vibrant and clear, Stephen Young’s Generations (Inkjet print/photography)pulls the viewer into its majestic scene.  But in the midst of adventure, the spotlight falls on a simple cloud of dust, and suddenly time is slowed. In a single moment, Young expertly captures the essence of awe and the sensation of a powerful peace. 

Kimberly Berrett’s extraordinary attention to detail in Man’s Light (Watercolor, drip pen, ink) depicts both aspects of our constructed world and the natural world. Her use of light, watercolor, and line combines to create an intriguing character and narrative!