The Kinetic Gallery kicked off the fall semester by showcasing student work, the fruit of last spring’s Battle of the Artists competition.
The top three artists who submitted work to the competition won cash prizes and spots in the Battle of the Artists exhibition, which will run from Sept. 17 to Oct. 21. First prize went to senior Ray Ferreira, second to senior James Bae and third to junior Alexa Brodsky.
Several members of the Geneseo art department judged the competition, which brought in over 100 submissions of varied artworks.
Upon entering the exhibit, Ferreira’s multimedia installation “Untitled” serves as an initially eye-catching work. The piece is composed of three levels of hexagonal modules, both drawn on and elevated from the wall, onto which a six-minute looped video is projected. The video features Ferreira enacting a whirlwind of emotional snapshots.
“Untitled” serves as a geometrical celebration of the human body and of perception, breaking up Ferreira’s identity into individual pixels and allowing him to be seen from a unique perspective: in parts or as a whole.
“If you look at each section by itself, it’s just colors that are moving, but when you see the thing as a whole and you forget about the pixels, it’s just like a picture,” Ferreira said. “It’s the small little images that create the bigger picture.”
Bae utilizes photography to illustrate a similarly unique approach to observing people and objects. Much of Bae’s photographical work in the exhibition makes use of an unexpected element.
One of his standout pieces is a series of photos featuring models posing in a deserted theater accompanied by various birds. Another remarkable series is a group of photos that Bae categorizes as landscapes. They are actually photos of various elements of a gas station taken close up: a vending machine, a gas pump and other seemingly mundane fixtures. Together they form one innovative composite idea of the gas station environment.
According to Brodsky, her metalworking pieces in the exhibition took two to three months to complete. She said that each of the four pieces hints at her evolution both as an artist and a person. A series of copper spoons she created represents this metaphor. The three spoons are part of an evolutional hierarchy, one being a seed, the next a leaf and the final a twisted and intricate flower.
This Kinetic Gallery opening was the first to feature artist talks, an idea Ferreira suggested.
Ferreira finished his talk, saying, “I’m not here to answer questions; I’m here to raise them.”