Art students put talents on display
Joseph Moore
News Writing Student
Soon-to-be graduates of the visual arts program put their talents on display when their portfolio exhibition debuted recently in the Visual Performing Arts Center Gallery.
The show featured nine artists with work ranging from photography and painting, to ceramics and sculpture.
Robert Ahboah said he drew inspiration for his sculpture from Mexico.
“This is a piece I created using household items,” Ahboah said. “I used plastic plates, paper clips, sponges, hair curlers, just glued together.”
The piece builds from its base with ring after ring of gold painted plates reaching up to a peak detailed in metals. Using an aging technique, Ahboah said he gave his sculpture an old world patina, so it gives the impression of having come from war torn Mexico.
His other works include a painted foam-core sculpture in which students had to work from a small clay mold.
“I struggled with this project a bit,” Ahboah admitted.
The feather light sculpture, with its black highlights and gray body, took on the image of a mass of iron.
Upon graduating, Ahboah said he plans on transferring to the University of Oklahoma, earning a bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts, and some day teaching or opening his own gallery.
On her birthday, JoAnna Garza found the inspiration to capture the photo of a newborn foal.
“I was admiring a digital camera my mother had just purchased when I just took a picture of it,” Garza said.
Without even realizing what she had captured, she said, she illustrated a mother’s love, showing security and the mare’s unwillingness to leave her offspring.
Other photos Garza took are of natural landscapes, about which she feels most inspired, the artist said.
Garza, who will graduate next semester, said she is considering entering the architecture program at the University of Central Oklahoma.
Matt Jackson’s talents focused on ceramics, as it was his favorite medium of art, he said.
His pieces included a bowl, saki jar and a very realistic slab shaped into a skateboard.
“This holds exactly 750 ml, I don’t know how I did that,” Jackson said of his saki jar. “I love sushi, and saki and sushi go hand in hand.”
Originally a psychology major, Jackson said, he made the decision to change to art after serving in Iraq as an infantryman.
