Perpich Studio Arts Presents “Meet Me Halfway: Curriculum Exhibition” and “Beyond The Classroom Exhibition”

January 28, 2022

Perpich Studio Arts students presented two exhibitions, Meet Me Halfway: Curriculum Exhibition and Beyond The Classroom Exhibition, on Thursday, January 27, 2022. The exhibitions are showing in the Upper Gallery and Lower Gallery through March 11, 2022. Meet Me Halfway features artwork by every studio arts student at Perpich during their 2nd quarter. The artwork was made for classroom assignments and showcases the range within the Perpich studio arts curriculum. Students selected their favorite piece from one of their two arts classes. Works include prints, sculptures, photography, cinematography, animation, drawings, paintings, etc. Beyond The Classroom Exhibition features artwork from students produced on their own time, outside the classroom. It offers viewers a glimpse into the young artists’ personal interests. During the opening, a screening of cinema and animation work took place in the Performance Hall.

In the exhibition statement, the students said, “Our second curriculum show continues our development as Thinking Artists. We have built our foundation, gotten our feet wet, and dived deep to show the range of our capabilities. In trying new mediums, we have discovered favored techniques and processes, allowing us to show a variety of thematic self interests and broader visual perspectives. As we have gained comfort, familiarity, and control of these new mediums, our artistic voices are boosted in confidence and our work complements, challenges, and inspires our peers. We have discovered the benefits to being in a like-minded community of artistic colleagues who support, illuminate, push, encourage, and lift each other to be their best artistic selves at this moment. In our classes we are continuing the journey of artistic dialogue, self expression, learning, and knowledge creation. We continue to discover, delve, discard, dedicate, expand, refine, learn, awaken, heighten, embrace, let go, gain, and gather more tools, experiences, and greater community by moving in, forward, and through this halfway mark.”

Studio Arts students and their instructors before the January 27th exhibition opening

Rowan Freeman (Media Arts 2023) said, “It’s really fun when you get the chance to see what everyone else is making because we’re all doing our separate things so it’s fun to see what all the other students in your grade are doing and what they’ve made and done with their semester.”

Raechel Rinkoski (Visual Arts 2022) said, “Putting the gallery together for a show is a very collaborative effort and generally pretty fun because everybody gets along really well together. There’s also the opportunity to talk with each other about what piece should go where, how the colors mesh together; it’s a good time. One of the things that makes putting each exhibition up so special is you get to see everybody’s work progress.”

Iilen Gillespie (Visual Arts 2022) said, “My piece reflects on mental health, specifically depression. It had a lot to do with the first semester. I fell into a pretty bad depression and I got out of it through a lot of help from friends and family. To depict this, I painted a girl with a bouquet on her back with lily of the valley, which is my favorite flower. I’ve seen it spring up in the snow, which I thought was perfect for a new beginning and springing out of something that’s a little sad. The praying mantises around it show the sneaking of depression and how it really can surprise you sometimes.”

Attendees at the exhibition opening discuss the gallery pieces

Rin McMahon (Visual Arts 2023) said, “I really enjoyed the first semester because we got to experience a variety of different things that we wouldn’t have gotten to experience otherwise so it was really nice to dabble in a lot of things.”

Sophia Cruz (Media Arts 2023) said, “The last semester was amazing! I learned a lot of new things and different skills. I’m really proud of the work I’m displaying in the exhibition; I didn’t expect it to turn out so well. I’m having a great time here at Perpich.”

Eli Ogilvie (Visual Arts 2023), in reference to the Digital Illustration course, said, “It was a lot of stuff that I had dabbled in, but not really done anything serious or completed. So it was fun to see the project through to completion.”

Congratulations to all the students, and their instructors, on a powerful and impressive exhibition!