April 24, 2014. The Smith Gallery at Appalachian State University presents Boundless the Spring 2014 BFA Senior Studio Exhibition. The exhibition is on view from April 28 through May 10 and includes work by the candidates for the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Art. These artists are exploring a wide variety of studio techniques including photography, fibers, metals, installation, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics and painting. A closing reception will be held at the gallery on May 10 from 1-2:30 p.m.
The gallery is pleased to present works from the following artists: Cat Boyte, Andrew David Cox, William Hendrix, Laurie Kirkpatric, Mary Shannon Marshall, Gena Murfin, Maria Perry, Sara Lynn Zagar. Andrew David Cox’s exhibition will be on view at the Looking Glass Gallery in the Plemmons Student Union. For the past year, these students have been working with Jeana Eve Klein, associate professor of Art.
Klein said, “the students participating in the BFA studio art exhibition selected an appropriate title for the show: Boundless. This group has boundless energy, boundless enthusiasm, boundless potential and boundless materials through which they communicate their conceptual ideas. They have worked incredibly hard over the last year and it is exciting and gratifying to see the results of that hard work come to fruition in this exhibition.”
Public Events
A reception for the artists will be held on Saturday, May 10 from 1-2:30 p.m. at the Smith Gallery. A reception for Andrew David Cox’s exhibition is also on May 10 at the Looking Glass Gallery from 12-1 p.m.
About the Artists
Cat Boyte was born in 1992. She grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina where she graduated from Myers Park High School. The work she is creating for the exhibition makes images larger than life while using a lively, energetic approach. When painting, she puts her whole body into the process, using her personal energy to create an atmosphere and give the paintings life. Boyte works on a very large scale to show her alter ego. She is 5 feet tall but has a big personality and wants her art to represent that. Boyte’s paintings portray flowers because they are like her, small and sometimes overlooked. She gives them a larger than life feel to show their beauty and energy that some may miss. After graduation, Boyte has aspirations of earning her Master of Fine Arts and hopes to teach at the colligate level, possibly returning to Appalachian State University to live, teach, make art and play in the snow.
Andrew David Cox was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1992. Cox began drawing cartoons and comics in middle school and drew a comic for the high school paper for all four years. As the current editorial cartoonist for the Appalachian State University school newspaper, The Appalachian, Cox’s cartoons address important issues playfully and wittily while also recognizing somber and serious moments. In February of 2013, Cox received an Honorable Mention for Illustration/Graphic/Cartoon for Large Schools (more than 6,000 students) by the Statewide College Media Awards presented by the North Carolina College Media Association. His work as a cartoonist and freelance illustrator has appeared in multiple publications, including the Winston-Salem Journal, the High Country Press, and select blog posts on the website Daily Kos. Additionally, Cox is one of only a few student members of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, having been accepted in September of 2013. He had his first solo exhibition at The Looking Glass Gallery on campus at Appalachian State University in the fall of 2013. Apart from his cartooning and illustration, Cox paints as well. His paintings are also political and express opinions on current events while addressing more universal topics than his cartoons. He maintains the practices of both cartooning and painting in the belief that the combination betters his art overall. Following graduation, he plans to pursue editorial cartooning, comics, illustration, and painting full time.
William Hendrix was born in Winston-Salem, NC in 1987. Hendrix began drawing as soon as he could pick up a crayon. Throughout grade school, he continued to draw and paint and refine his skills. Skateboarding, hiking in the woods, going to see bands, and hanging out with a close group of friends were the other elements that made up his childhood. In his current paintings, Hendrix is exploring the relationship between character, environment and suggested narrative. After graduation, Hendrix plans to balance his painting practice with work in commercial art and design. Hendrix’s previous graphic design commissions include logo, business card and t-shirt design for Green Country Alternative Energy Solutions and The Mile High Tavern.
Laurie Kirkpatrick was born in Boone, North Carolina in 1991. Within her media of ceramics, Kirkpatrick employs a variety of techniques including casting, throwing on the wheel, and hand building. Kirkpatrick’s current body of work investigates the dynamic between meditation and making. These pieces explore her interests in beauty and gratitude through ceramic sculpture. Kirkpatrick is the recipient of the Eva H. Burress Memorial scholarship awarded by the Art Department and the undergraduate research grant awarded by the Office of Student Research at Appalachian State University. Locally she has exhibited artwork in the Looking Glass Gallery and at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts. Her work was also published in The Appalachian. In addition to her time spent as a full time student, Kirkpatrick also works as a Gallery Ambassador at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts.
Born in 1990, Mary Shannon Marshall grew up a wild child in the woods near her home in Cary, North Carolina. At an early age, her parents encouraged her ‘vivid imagination’ by providing her with visual art journals in which to document her travels. This visual journaling practice is still a vital part of her artistic process today. After taking every art course her high school offered, Marshall graduated with honors from Cary High School in May 2009. In March of 2011, she was diagnosed with Narcolepsy (with Cataplexy), a rare, auto-immune disease that prevents the brain from being able to control sleep-wake cycles. Her frustration from dealing with uncontrollable ‘sleep-attacks,’ hallucinations and muscle paralysis along with the lack of public understanding about narcolepsy led her to begin documenting her experiences with narcolepsy in her art. Working primarily in mixed media, she explores the vivid realm of dreams through colorful, flowing compositions of figures and landscapes.
Gena Murfin was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina. She experienced an eclectic art scene and studied music from a young age. It wasn’t until her undergraduate studies that Murfin turned her creative energy to visual arts while taking a metalsmithing and jewelry design course. As she began to work with precious metals and traditional metalsmithing techniques, Murfin sought to relate her passion for musical aesthetics with physical forms. Her current work explores ideas of motion and rhythm within small tangible objects, both sculptural and wearable. The wearable notions give the work a life beyond the gallery walls, as the objects are both visually pleasing and precious to hold.
Maria Perry was born and raised in Cary, North Carolina. Working in the mediums of clay, fibers, wood, and metal, Perry uses her study of the traditional practice of yoga to inform the work she makes. Perry’s sense of curiosity and fascination with the paradoxical world is grounded in practicing and teaching the boundless forms of yoga. A recent trip to Chennai, India with Appalachian State University’s Social Work program continues to deepen her desire to seek connection. Perry’s work has been included in multiple group exhibitions, published in The Peel Literary and Art Review, selected for the juried student Art Expo for the past two years, and awarded both a scholarship and a research grant for her work. On any day, you can find Perry working in the studio, making homemade goodies, teaching and playing around Boone or dreaming of traveling the world.
Sara Lynn Zagar was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1991. She graduated from West Mecklenburg High School in 2009. In addition to art making and working with her hands, Zagar has a passion for the outdoors and music. Once she decided on a major in studio art, she fell in love with all the possibilities printmaking, as a medium, had to offer. Her present work combines found photography and printmaking as a means of communicating the emotion and stories that can be lost in the clutter of antique and secondhand stores. Ultimately, her artistry allows her to form a relationship with the images and bring new life to the abandoned photographs.
The Smith Gallery is located in the Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts at 733 Rivers Street on the Campus of Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. Admission is free for all events and programs. Hours are from 9 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday and during special events. For more information, please call 828-262-7338 or visit www.art.appstate.edu/cjs. Like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/smithgalleryappstate.