OCR Text |
Show -- f (0k The Daily Itah Chronicle - Page EitefffeaSiii mem Friday, June 1. 1990 University of L'tah Eight show xhMt now ftutiloinft h By David VV. Medina Chronicle Art Critic Summer HI is almost here, and school is over. In the College of Arts, this is marked by the department's Annual Student Show, an event allowing students to exhibit the fruits of their labor, their sweat and their blood. year-lon- g Most agree that this year's show exhibits a strength that was missing in last year's. The majority of works on display are strong and unique, and only a minority have that "merely classroom assignment" feel, bearing the inevitable faces, and bodies of classroom models that appear in the show year after year. i Art students are allowed to enter a maximum of two pieces in each category painting, drawing, sculpture, etc. Of the many submitted, gallery space permits only a comparable few to be accepted and will not be inevitably some students' work " shown at all. Awards are given each year to one work in each category, selected by faculty vote. The student artists then receive a "trophy" in the form of an appropriately selected art book. But everyone knows the true award is the " -- . , v - - v V - -r , Vi Jy J K pride, confidence and respect that accompanies such an honor. r , Also each year one piece of work that displays exemplary skill and craftsmanship is honored with the title of Best in Show, and the icing on the cake is the accompaniment of a cash prize. This year's award could not have been more appropriately awarded than to Liz Birkholz for her haunting, surrealistic photograph, "Touch." , Birkholz has recently developed a unique photographic style of collage, creating a whole with various individual contrasting image parts. The odd, feeling given by these pieces is then effectively magnified by the antique brown-on-whiprinting process Birkholz uses. "Touch" is such a piece, except that Birkholz replaces the collage event for a real, no less frightening one. The photograph is of a large plastic doll lying stiffly and awkwardly on a white sheet. Across its torso an arm, with no apparent source, reaches to hold its hand. In a paradox, the real but unknown strives to comfort the known but unreal. While the scene is captivating on its own, the photograph has been painted over by Birkholz with various shades of flesh and brown in gestural smears and squiggles. These add to its strangeness and create a signature as individual as the fingerprints in a finger out-of-ti- me te iSi, . , . - painting. A category that has seldom been given enough credit or acknowledgment is graphic design. This year's award was deservingly presented to senior Joe Esquibel for his piece, "Native American Art." Esquibel's work is a tasteful advertisement that one might find in a y magazine or in noster form. At the top is a piece of red and black. Native American pottery running off the page at an aesthetically pleasing slant. The background is made up of a series of patterns mimicking the traditional shapes one would find in the work of this culture. high-qualit- This untitled ceramic sculpture by Liz Poulos is part of the College of Fine Arts student show, which is being held in the Gittins Gallery at the U.'s College of Fine Arts, 101 Arts and Architecture Building. The gallery is open weekdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. see Mart" on page twelve |