The latest exhibition in the visual art department showcases the work of students in foundations level courses. The 2020 Foundations Exhibition is open from Feb. 25 through March 16 in Lewandowski Student Gallery in McLaurin Hall. The exhibition is a showcase of student work from foundations level classes, which include drawing 1, drawing 2, 2D design, 3D design and media studies courses.
Sophomore fine arts major and education minor Jewel Edwards feels that the exhibit works as a debut for students who may not have exhibited their work before. “The showcase is really about showcasing new artists,” Edwards said. “First time students get to showcase their work to everyone, it’s kind of like your debut as an artist.”
According to sophomore art education major Emily Shelton, the pieces chosen for the show are meant to “best represent the courses.”
Shelton has two pieces in the show, a music video and a sculpture. The music video is for the song “Take Flight” by Columbia, SC based band Bellavida, a song that Shelton says spoke to her. The video plays with different patterns, both those that occur in nature and man made patterns such as roads.
Shelton’s other piece is a sculpture that examines the ways many students must “put a price on life.” The sculpture is a pig named Penny, whose stomach is slashed open with pennies spilling out of it, as “a play on a piggy bank.” The sculpture was a final project for Shelton’s 3D design course, which had to be an installation using any medium or topic. Shelton installed the sculpture next to a vending machine, with quarters and dimes mixed with the more “worthless” pennies to see if people would search through the pennies and steal the quarters and dimes, as a statement about “sacrificing art for money”. According to Shelton, all of the quarters and dimes were taken.
Edwards has four pieces in the show, which are mixed media abstract pieces using materials such as colored pencils and paint. Her work deals with colorism in the black community, and specifically with whitening creams used to lighten the skin. “European [beauty] ideals have always been highlighted, that white is more beautiful. So I took this idea of how white creams bleach skin,” Edwards said.
The piece also focuses on the health risks posed by using bleaching creams, which can increase the risk of skin cancer, lead to liver and other organ problems and can damage the skin. “We’re using white creams to cover [our skin color] up, which actually is damaging our insides. And it’s so commercialized that we don’t really know what’s happening inside, because they portray this false advertisement of beauty.”
Edwards says much of her work is research based. “I do a lot of research to kind of understand the history of why we think white skin is beautiful, where it’s coming from, how it’s kind of gotten to modern day society. And how we’re still using bleach creams to lighten our skin.”
The Foundations Exhibition runs through March 16 in the Lewandowski Student Gallery, in McLaurin Hall. For more information, visit https://www.winthrop.edu/galleries/current-exhibitions.aspx
Photo: Sam Ross/ The Johnsonian
