On the fourth floor of the Ivan Wilson Fine Arts Center is the Cube Gallery, a space for students to display original artwork. One student who decided to display his creations is junior art education major Dane Slayden.
“As a freshman and sophomore, I remember going and seeing the shows and thinking of these people that were pretty much just my peers as sort of celebrities,” Slayden said. “Then once I noticed that I had a decent body of work that I could show off and was proud of, I just kind of decided that I would love to do a show and sort of start getting my name out there more.”
It was this feeling that led to the creation of the “IN THE EYE OF” exhibit, which features Slayden’s art as well as the work of Ethan Justice, Lance Burdette and Kyra Embra. The walls and three podiums in the gallery are filled with Slayden’s art. Comments left on notecards by both the artists and observers also line the gallery’s walls.
The exhibit boasts a variety of types of art including a charcoal piece of a cow skull, several collages, a human figure made of tape, a head sculpt, a welded sculpture, pottery and more.
“All the pieces vaguely revolve around identity and how your physical body and self interacts with the conceptual self that you have in your mind,” Slayden said. “ All of the people in the show have an understanding and appreciation for work that isn’t solely graceful traditional art.”
“IN THE EYE OF,” the name of the exhibit, comes from the phrase, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Slayden said.
“I just kind of cut out the parts that made it a phrase that made sense. It was interesting because not all the work is necessarily beautiful in a traditional sense,” Slayden said. “Also I draw eyes a lot, so there’s a lot of eyes in the work. It was a play on that too.”
Burdette’s piece “Abstract” features a textured and impressionistic man holding his chest that appears to be bleeding. The note next to it reads the lyrics of “Abstract (Psychopomp)” by Hozier.
“The texture is divine I can feel the heart bleeding,” reads a comment left next to the painting.
The interactive element is one many people have chosen to participate in. The notecards are scattered across the walls filled with thoughts of observers. “The Divine Transsexual” by Embry has two notes left floating adjacent to the pieces. “Beautiful,” reads one note. “Love this,” reads another.
“Mimesis” is the exhibition’s largest piece, hanging in the center of the largest wall of the gallery. It is a collage made by Slayden about the “creation and deconstruction of oneself.” Of Slayden’s work in the gallery, “Mimesis” is the most meaningful to him.
“I started with an oil painting, a self-portrait,” Slayden said. “Then immediately, once it was done, I cut it into pieces. Then I put it on a new thing and took more of my old artwork combined with different magazines and comic books and destroyed them and put them into different pieces. And then, once again, put them back together to create a new piece and then added more back on top of that.”
Slayden said he hoped those who visit the gallery interact with the work he and the other artists created.
“I just want people to interact with art,” Slayden said. “I like to think, hopefully, people come away thinking. Just thinking about whatever. Thinking about themselves, about other people, or just thinking about coming back to more shows.”
“IN THE EYE OF” is on display in the Cube Gallery, found at FAC 436, for the remainder of the week from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
News Reporter Malone Farmer can be reached at [email protected].
