In the Visual Arts Building at KSU’s Kennesaw Campus, 10 senior art students are preparing for their capstone project: an exhibit at the Fine Arts Gallery where each student will present several of their creations to the public. The Peak was granted unique access to the exhibit as we sat down with these students to gain insight into their art.
Olivia Satterfield
Olivia Satterfield drew the inspiration for her pieces from observing people and studying them as specimens apart from their identity or personality. All of her pieces are figurative, incorporating various elements of the human body. One standout piece from her collection is a depiction of two hands embroidered on a piece of fabric and then washed over with paint, fingers entwined and bent backwards. It’s an examination, as Olivia says, of “how bodies and people turn into something else,” and how the human form can be made to look inhuman.
Abby Smith
“Painting should be used to alter reality,” Smith says. “Painting reality is done.”
Smith’s works for the exhibit all depict birds, which she says are symbolic of her dreams. They capture the strange, unreal quality of a dream by portraying images that wouldn’t occur in real life — a bird with beams coming out of its eyes, for example. She uses oil paint and appreciates the tactile quality of a more traditional medium that can’t be replicated digitally. Although her birds are marvelously life-like, she says that her work is never hyper-realistic.
“Why paint something,” she asks, “if you can just photograph it?”
Erin Miller
For Erin Miller, art is a way not only of expressing her own voice, but also of belonging to “a collective voice” of artists past and present. Her work for the exhibit explores themes of fragility and vulnerability with an interest in the human body, inspired by 18th century anatomical wax models. Erin created her art by modeling crepe-paper on her own body and explains that the delicacy of the thin paper – falling apart in some places, held together at others – explores “the state of being solid and fragile at the same time.”
Giovanni Pertillo
Giovanni Pertillo’s works are, by his own description, “doom and gloom,” a series of abstract paintings that portray people throughout history who have abused their power. His first work in the series was inspired by the Roman Emperor Commodus. Pertillo said that he took a bust of the mad emperor and began morphing it; the finished product is nearly unrecognizable but gives an overall impression of destruction and violence. The process took about 30 minutes, and Pertillo says it’s his favorite of the series. His second work is similarly focused around Pablo Escobar, and includes the imagery of a tomb and skeleton, the American flag, and the masses of people who mourned Escobar’s death.
Hannah Patrick
For Hannah Patrick, art is a type of therapy. As a child, she used it to escape from her home life. Then and now, she says, it’s a way to “dictate my feelings through creation.” One piece in particular represents her frustration with what she was being told in class: “paint faster, paint faster.” So, she painted faster – the piece took her about 6 minutes. But she says that the painting also portrays her relief at being able to just do something.
“The less I think about it,” she says, “the better it turns out.”
Paola Paniagua
Avid gamer and Photoshop extraordinaire Paola Paniagua is presenting illustrations focused on storytelling and environments, specifically fantastical, fairy-tale like ones. One scene in her series is concept art from a video game that she’s hoping to create, which she says is still in its conceptual phase. Paniagua describes her own work as having a “painterly quality.” Her roots are in traditional painting, and so she wants to combat the stigma around digital art by showing work that still has that traditional appeal.
“The computer is just another canvas,” Paniagua says.
Julee Noguiera
Julee Noguiera – described by the rest of the students as “the mom of the group” — says that when she was a child, she had difficulty speaking English, and so art was her answer.
“I don’t know exactly what I’m accomplishing as an artist,” Noguiera says. “I’m still studying my own art.”
Her works include a variety of digital and print pieces, ranging from sequential comics to creative scenes to more abstract works. The unifying theme, she says, is the concept of storytelling and the way viewers create their own story from the art.
Noguiera and Paniagua are the first two art students at KSU to graduate with a concentration in illustration.
If you are interested in meeting these students and seeing their artwork, we encourage you to attend a reception held from 5-7 on Monday, Nov., 4 at the KSU Fine Arts Gallery, located on the KSU Kennesaw Campus. Admission is free and food and drinks will be provided.