#start opening

A few examples: Julia DeNuzzio’s piece, one of the first pieces seen in the exhibit, seems to have hugely abstracted the serenity of a landscape and waterfall scene, adding dashes of pink color and unexpected twists to pull the viewer into seeing more than just the water in the scene, but an ever-changing dynamic of relationships through her own perspective. Kelly McAdam utilizes more earth tones to accomplish her oil painting depicting an abstraction of leaves and foliage mingling together with no real sense of reality or exact rendering. Julia Zhang seems to be exploring a more biological take on nature, depicting abstract forms of cells that create all of life and are the basis of nature; many bright colors juxtaposed with deep hues and large shapes mixed with details seem to show the ever-present complexity of breathing life forms and of the organization of nature.

The students were also prompted to think of art as a gift – something they would want to give to a loved one. Many of these were, in fact, still life scene depictions, and are beautiful nonetheless. The students first used Photoshop to quickly sketch their ideas and concepts and fix and edit their compositions without doing it tediously in paint. The hand of the artist is always most prominent, and these digital resources only help the process in bettering way – one can definitely see each artist’s own style of how he or she holds the brush and applies paint to the canvas.