Fresno State’s Conley Art Gallery hosted their last art exhibit of the semester showcasing graduating students of the art department for the Young Masters 2015 Senior Art Show, hosted by the Art Gallery Techniques class at Fresno State.
A plethora of different art mediums and designs will be on display now through May 6 to commemorate and send off the seniors in their last hurrah as Fresno State students.
Emily Small, a studio art major with an emphasis in sculpture design said she will take away much from her experience at the Fresno State art department.
Small said she was excited to hear that her painting made it into the gallery because she normally works with sculpting.
Professors like Chris Morgan and Jeff Hunter are just a few people she was inspired by while working on her degree. Small’s hand in the art world ranges from gallery art, including sculpting and painting to theatre design.
Emily will be attending San Diego State’s scenic design graduate program in the fall working in theatre art.
“I am so excited about graduate school,” Small said. “I do theatre for fun because it’s very applicable and theatre is exciting.”
Erin Foster, printmaking major and member of the Print and Glory club, a club dedicated to graphic prints and relief printing with wood, said she was really excited to get into the gallery show.
“It’s nice that’s it’s up there ”” it’s kind of like a starting point,” Foster said of her piece displayed in the gallery. “This piece helped me to start and figure out my direction which I didn’t know before.”
Using old printmaking techniques, Foster and the Print and Glory club created and sold graphic t-shirts at the gallery show on-the-spot with other cool and unique merchandise made by club members.
“We carve out wood blocks with carving tools, ink them up and print them on t-shirts live,” Foster said. “We’re continuing the process of old printmaking techniques with fine art.”
Foster plans to get into the credential program to teach art to eager young students and individuals in the classroom.
“They don’t ever teach this in high school,” Foster said. “It’s inspiring because we have people who have never seen this done before and anyone can join the club.”
Javier Lopez, another student in Fresno State’s art department, had a six-foot charcoal drawing of the Mexican president in memory of the 43 students who disappeared and were killed in Mexico.
“They haven’t found the students, and I wanted to do this to point out the face of fear in society,” Lopez said. “It’s something I like depicting in my work and something I want to deal with more.”
Lopez’s piece was darkly represented with a pop of color coming off of bullets falling from the Mexican president’s hand and a sash of the Mexico flag wrapped around his chest.
“I wanted to make this piece life-size,” Lopez said. “I titled it the Mexican Corruption and the idea behind it was everything that was going on in Mexico.”