By Misti DeHart/ nw news editor
The walls of NW Campus’ Lakeview Gallery are active with the prize-winning art of NW students in its exhibit No Boundaries.
NW art students Lauren Tomlinson, Francisco Olmos, Eunjoo Maxwell and Tippy Phetsamone are currently featured on the gallery walls in mixed media, including latex paint, graphite and mat board.
John Hartley, NW art associate professor, has curated the exhibit, initially titled Four Walls, for four years. The exhibition not only gives students a chance to potentially showcase their talents but, most importantly, equips the students with some real-world skills that would be needed if they were to pursue careers in the competitive field, said NW art associate professor Winter Rusiloski.
Students in art classes are asked to submit proposals for art projects, Rusiloski said.
Photos by Bogdan Sierra Miranda/The Collegian
“If they could do anything, activate one of the four walls [in Lakeview] with their vision, what would it look like?” she said. “Then we teach them the process of proposing a show.”
Rusiloski said this teaches students how to approach a gallery or an art project.
“They produce a sketch, or a maquette,” she said. “You know, ‘These are the materials I would be using. This is how I see the project looking.’ They tell us the proposed content of the space in a gallery and are taught to present it in such a visual way as to align with what they would be doing in the real world.”
Just as in the previous years, the exhibition is a contest judged and scored by a panel of NW art professors. The four winning students each outfit one of the walls in Lakeview Gallery with his/her prize-winning piece. Not only do the highest-scoring students get to own the winning title to include in their portfolio, but they also receive $100 toward the cost of their materials.
Hartley is proud of this exhibition, partially because he feels it’s a rare opportunity for community college art students.
“I worked at UTA, and I wanted to do something that four-year universities couldn’t do,” he said. “I’ve never heard of a four-year institution giving a student this kind of competition, giving a student a wall as well as a small fund to execute a piece of artwork.”
He proposed the idea, and his NW colleagues liked it.
“Sometimes it gets difficult, but the end result has always been rewarding,” he said. “I mean, just look at the walls — such talent!”
No Boundaries will be on display during NW school hours in the Lakeview Gallery until Dec. 3, when there will be a reception honoring the artists 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and an artists’ talk beginning at noon.
