It's often been said that a picture is worth a thousand words.
If this is true, the artists of the Jonson Gallery's 10th Annual Juried Graduate Student Exhibition speak volumes in every language known to man.
"I'm a curious person, and art is such a mysterious thing," Lea Anderson, one of the featured artists, said. "You're always discovering something new and challenging yourself to learn about the world and yourself."
Anderson's piece, "De-Conception" seems to return the viewers' gaze. In the catalogue, Daniel Miller describes Anderson's pieces as "organic and alive - one almost expects them to breathe."
"Painting can be much more than what the mass culture thinks painting generally is," said Blake Gibson, one of the featured artists.
Gibson's work is definitely not tame or soft-spoken. His "When Worlds Collide" erupts from the wall in a stunning display of color and texture.
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"I want to convey a sense of dynamic presence," he said. "I hope to spark a confrontational presence instead of something set squarely in a frame, flat against a wall."
There are many forms of work presented this year. The gallery is a cornucopia of visual delicacies.
Upon descending the stairs into the gallery, the viewer is confronted by an army of paper spiders crawling up the wall and creeping into the stairwell. Erika Adams' "Migration," combined with its second part in the video sculpture, uses many mediums to create a whimsical and thought-provoking commentary on society's concept of what is real.
"I endeavor to create a place where intuition and experimentation intermingle, a 'laboratory of visual arts' where all mediums are potential tools," Adams said of her work in the exhibition's catalogue.
Echoing this, Danielle Ferreira made her piece, "Impossible," from tiny twigs cast in bronze to resemble a ladder.
Christine Chin wrote in the catalogue that the title of Ferreira's piece partially comes from the warnings of fellow metal-casters that the technique would never work, but also from the perimeters of the imagination.
"Ferreira hints at the limitations of the human consciousness by having her ladder ascend into open space," Chin wrote in the catalogue. "Is the nothingness she leads us to an expression of the impossible, or of limitless possibilities?"
The variety of work at the gallery creates a collage of efforts that anyone can relate to.
"I hope it makes them wonder and think about the world," Anderson said. "It seems such a mystery that we're all here. I don't know if there's a God, but we all exist for one reason or another. I just want them to think about reality and outer reality. There's this huge world around us, but there's also a huge world inside of us, and there's a relationship between the two."
What: Annual Jurried Graduate Student Exhibition
When: Friday- May 7
Tuesdays, 9 a.m.- 8 p.m.
Wednesdays- Fridays, 9 a.m.- 4 p.m.
Where: Jonson Gallery,
1909 Las Lomas
Price: Free
Ticket Info: 277-4967
