Parallel universes, dream worlds and creation are some of the themes explored in this year's Bachelor of Fine Arts Candidates Senior Art Exhibition, "Parallel Parallel," opening April 14.
"We were trying to draw parallels between all of our works," said Alex Lazzari, senior in BFA fine art. "There's influence of landscape, there's influence of nature and the human nature. I would venture to say there's a good bit of spirituality and philosophy mixed in too."
Lazzari has been working with pen and ink stippling to develop his seven-piece series representing creation.
"'I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God,'" Lazzari said, quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature."
He explained how the quote has influenced his artistic growth since he read it last year.
The process of stippling, creating a pattern using small dots or brushstrokes, is a meditative one, according to Lazzari.
"By dabbling the surface of the paper with dots, each dot of ink placed is brought to life by every dot surrounding it," Lazzari said. "In each work there are areas of intensity and disparity, depth and flatness, tension and disruption, calm and chaos. Represented in the works are space and time, atmospheric and celestial bodies and earthly landscapes that contain life."
Aspiring conceptual artist, Cyndi Flint, senior in BFA fine art, will be presenting her surreal landscape paintings at "Parallel Parallel."
Flint said she began dreaming of other worlds in fifth grade after reading The Hobbit. Her works are also influenced by the Grimms' fairy tales and Marvel Comics illustration.
"We have our reality and then it's a parallel reality," Flint said. "It's a place where I can go to and just think about and immerse myself in, but at the same time it has connections to our world."
Flint compared her pieces to a storyboard representing travel through her ethereal world.
"Because I aspire to be a concept artist--a visual developer--basically I'm trying to bring a world that I've constantly been to in my dreams, or in my mind, trying to form one so I can show it as a portfolio," Flint said. "To bring it into a visual context, I'm kind of to give it a narrative, but at the same time I'm not because there are no figures, so it's not obvious."
Flint is not the only artist whose works at "Parallel Parallel" began as a dream.
"In my dream I saw the project at its finished point," said Rachel Little, senior in BFA fine art. "It was the idea of me designing humans as a creator type."
Little said she expanded her original idea to focus on the studio space a creator of humans might inhabit.
"In the middle of the gallery, I'm going to have a room built and on the inside of the walls will be something similar to this tracing paper medley here, just more filled up," Little said. "Like, from floor to ceiling."
Using ephemera, found objects like leaves, ticket stubs and tissue paper, Little has begun to decorate walls of the free-standing structure that represents the studio.
She said she wants the ephemera to remind viewers of parts of the human body. Little has worked chicken wire, branches and torn bits of paper into structures hinting at skeletal systems and muscular structures.
"Parallel Parallel" will be free and open to the public April 14-25 at Biggin Gallery. A reception is scheduled 4-6 p.m. on April 14.
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