1000 x 90

Catherine J. Smith Gallery at Appalachian State Presents the BFA Senior Studio Exhibition: Spring 2012

May 2, 2012. Catherine J. Smith Gallery (CJS) at Appalachian State University (ASU) presents the BFA Senior Studio Exhibition: Spring 2012. The exhibition will be on view from April 30 – May 11, and will include work by thirteen candidates for the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Art. The gallery is pleased to present works by the following artists: Kara Brown, Zac Cone, Zen Du, Joseph Duffer, David Gordon, Anna Johnson, Rosy Kirby, Lily Brittany Lane, Kirby Mellott, Meagan O’Connor, Allison Wesley Powers, Lindsey Steinmann, and Catherine Ann Watson.

In addition, Meagan O’Connor will exhibit her extensive collection of clay work at the Looking Glass Gallery in the Plemmons Student Union at ASU. Additional works installed and on display outside in public areas on campus include those by Zac Cone, Joseph Duffer, Dave Gordon, and Allison Wesley Powers. Works in all venues encompass a variety of media, including drawing, printmaking, fibers, painting, metals, ceramics, sculpture, and installation.

For the past year, these students have been working with Scott Ludwig, professor of the Department of Art. “The Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition provides the Department of Art, the Boone community, parents, family and friends an opportunity to gather together and celebrate the accomplishments of our graduating BFA Studio students,” says Ludwig. “This year’s group of students have worked tirelessly, developing exceptional work in the areas of drawing, printmaking, fibers, painting, metals, ceramics, sculpture, and installation. Their perseverance has resulted in an exceptional show that represents the quality and diversity of the ASU Art Department. This year’s exhibition is exceptionally special in that each student has been working with multiple forms of art media, expanding the boundaries of what the art department really has to offer.”

A closing reception for the exhibit will be held on Friday, May 11 from 5:30pm to 7pm at Catherine J Smith Gallery. There will be a walking tour of outside works beginning at the entrance of the gallery at 6pm – 6:45pm. The tour will end at the Looking Glass Gallery for another reception at 7pm. Please join the artists to celebrate their achievements at Appalachian State University. The event is free and open to the public. 

ALTERNATE EXHIBITION VENUES

All events listed are free and open to the public, and take place on the campus of Appalachian State University.

Corresponding Exhibits

Nourish and Enrich: The Importance of Communal Meals, by Meagan O’Connor

Looking Glass Gallery, Plemmons Student Union, ASU

Reception: Friday, May 11 from 7pm – 8pm

Outdoor Installations

Zac Cone

Located under the glass walkway at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts

Joseph Duffer

Located at Walker Hall

David Gordon

Located near Duck Pond

Allison Wesley Powers

Located at Walker Hall

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Zen Du

Zen Du was born in Russia to a nuclear physicist and a geologist.  On receiving the bill from the art school, she was secretly enrolled at the age of ten.  In order to “rescue” her from the unfortunate condition of being an artist, her parents made the decision to send her to the University of Linguistics, where she attended nursing classes. At the age of twenty, she decided to run from the terror of the institution and ended up in America with a pair of pants and her sketchbook. It only took another ten years to finish a Bachelor Degree of Fine Arts at Appalachian State University. Zen Du still lives in America and works every day excited about her condition as an artist.

Catherine Ann Watson

Catherine Ann Watson was born the eldest of two children. She spent her childhood years in the ever-growing city of Charlotte, NC with her brother. Her creativity sparked at the ripe young age of seven, and she took after-school art classes, which held her interest throughout high school. After graduating from Myers Park High School, she went straight into higher education at Appalachian State University where she pursued dual degrees in Art and Psychology with a minor in Sociology. Living in a continuous state of giggles, she has a very lively social life, constantly surrounded by friends. As the years passed, she has developed immeasurably as an artist, contributing to the outside community by helping to create permanent works for local institutions and gaining respect through participation in various campus art exhibitions.

Lindsay Steinmann

Lindsay Steinmann was born in Atlanta, Georgia in November of 1989. During the month and a half that she lived of the ‘80s, she attended several Grateful Dead concerts as an infant. As a child, she was encouraged by teachers and family members to create art and received much praise for her artistic skills. She, along with her three younger sisters, wanted to be an artist when she grew up; however, she was the only sibling to seriously pursue this goal. When Lindsay is not making art, she enjoys cooking, ecstatic dance, reading, and playing with her pet rabbit, Basil, and cat, Wonton.

Meagan O’Connor

Meagan O’Connor was born into a family of crafters and artists. Her father built model airplanes, rockets, and constructed stained glass windows as some of his various hobbies; her aunt dabbled in drawing and photography; her grandmother wins the award for ‘all-around superhero’ for her skills in knitting, canning, gardening, and cheese-making. It was no surprise when Meagan’s childhood love of making mud pies turned into a passion that she would pursue at a professional level. Her dedication to clay landed her the award for Student’s Choice in the 2011 Art Expo Student Exhibition in Catherine Smith Gallery. Influenced by friends, family, and food, she creates functional ceramic work for the purpose of dining, sharing, and being enriched. In May of 2012 Meagan will graduate from Appalachian State University with her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, at which time she will move on to her next great adventure.

Kirby Mellott

Kirby Christopher Mellott was born June 16th, 1989 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Working in the medium of sculpture, his works are part of private collections in New York City and other locations across America. Relatively uncertain of what his focus of study would be, he entered Appalachian State and quickly made the decision to hone his skills; working with his hands and crafting sculpture as a way of life.  Whether forming wall reliefs, freestanding, or mobile objects, it is fabricating metal, especially molten bronze and iron that is the driving force behind his creative interests. Mellott will graduate in the Spring of 2012 with a concentration in Sculpture and Extended Media. 

Lily Brittany Lane

Lily Brittany Lane was born in Wilmington, NC at the unacceptably early hour of 7:42am. She began her artistic career at the tender age of three by gluing magazine cuttings of flowers to cardboard boxes and employs whatever materials and technique are appropriate and engaging to create with. She studied art at the baccalaureate level at Appalachian State University where she received the Juror’s Selection Best Drawing award in Art Expo 2010 for a portrait of herself using a toilet. The following year was no less spectacular when she garnered Best Fiber Art in the Faculty and Student categories for a life-sized sculpture of an eviscerated road-kill deer. Lily enjoys adventure, fun, romance and participates in a wide variety of collaborative projects including guerilla gardening, ‘zines, landscape design, parades, prank mobs, public graffiti, art blogs, social games, and transformative education.

Joseph Duffer

Joseph Duffer was raised in Asheville and developed a desire for creating art in high school. During his studies at Appalachian State, he has been the recipient of the Fine and Applied Arts and Johnson Art scholarships. In 2011, the university purchased one of his sculptures for its permanent collection at the Plemmons Student Union. Growing up, he recalls being instilled with a simple mantra: “Pay attention.” This encouraged him to keep his eyes wide open and appreciate the world for every movement.  He believes the natural environment is permeated with magical wonder, and the observations drawn from it affect how he interprets and perceives the world.  Defined as a collection of memories from nature and place, he forms these into physical works of art, filtering them through the mediums of painting and sculpture and displays these manifestations at venues such as Looking Glass Gallery and the Nth Gallery located in Boone.

David Gordon

As a North Carolina native, David Gordon has been seeking his Bachelors in Fine Arts at Appalachian State University with a concentration in Sculpture.  His work focuses on the inherent qualities of materials and references his thoughts on order and chaos.  Using this as a launching point for his work, he acts merely as a facilitator, allowing the natural forces of nature to ultimately define the dictation of the final form.

Kara Brown

Even before Kara was born, her parents, David and Tammy, knew she would be a handful from the moment the sonogram showed her bouncing like a frog.  She was born into the world on April 11, 1990 in Burlington NC, with her jet-black hair sticking straight up in a mohawk. For the first eleven years of her life, the only pictures of her are her darting around in a blurry haze. As she hit high school, her ungodly energy began to level out, and she realized that she was enthralled with the details of every surface that she studied. Overwhelmed by a desire to visually create, she decided to pursue art at Appalachian State University, concentrating in Metal-Smithing and Jewelry Design with a secondary concentration in Fibers. During her time there, she worked outside of the classroom and in the community, leading weekly art seminars.  She also took on several large painting commissions for local churches in North Wilkesboro, NC.  She feels extremely fortunate to have had the resources and opportunities to do exactly what she desired with her education!

Anna Johnson

Born and raised in North Carolina, Anna Johnson is currently seeking her Bachelors in Fine Arts in Studio Art at Appalachian State University.  Since a little girl, jewelry has played an immense role in her discovery and love for the arts, and she has used this life-long love as the catalyst of her artistic endeavors. Speaking through the form of metals, Anna seeks to create a merger of art, nature, and science, in forms of adornment for the human body. 

Allison Wesley Powers

In true form, Allison Wesley Powers came into this world tardy on September 19th 1985, in Fort Wainwright, Fairbanks, Alaska during the height of moose hunting season. After nearly ten months of playing racquetball in her mother’s womb, and much to her father’s dismay, she was not a boy. From then on, she took off running. As a toddler, she rode her baby walker down a flight of stairs and laughed when she got to the bottom. As a child, she went missing. While the whole neighborhood was looking for her, she had only wandered off to make an impromptu sculpture with an entire case of Oreos. Growing up, Powers was passionate about music, art, and athletics such as lacrosse and basketball; therefore, she was always loud and covered in paint or dirt. To this day she still creates impromptu artwork, and everything she owns, including her furniture and Jeep, is covered in paint. Now, it is her passion for astronomy that drives her current work. Allison Wesley Powers most recently exhibited her work at the Nth Gallery in Boone and the Art Department’s Art Expo 2012. Her artwork is eccentric, versatile, and often pushes the boundaries between painting and sculpture.

Rosy Kirby

Rosy Kirby was raised on blueberries and spring water in the highlands of Southwest Virginia. Her artistic career was initially launched at the age of four, when she began constructing tiny paper books about orphans and recording woeful stories on plastic cassette tapes. Over the following years, she has exhibited her work at venues such as the Nth Gallery, the Catherine Smith Gallery, on the underbelly of public bridges, Art Mart, living rooms, and record sleeves. During the summer of 2010, she was invited as a resident artist at the Collective on Depot, where she made linoleum relief prints and turned a fire exit hallway into water. In between journaling, traveling, and performing miracles, she studies Printmaking and Art Education at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. 

Zac Cone

I was born in Greenville, South Carolina and moved frequently during the first few years of my life.  We moved around the southeast until my family finally settled in the Charlotte and Concord area as I was just entering elementary school.  It was during those early formative years that I found art, and if I wasn’t wandering in the woods and playing in the mud, I was most likely drawing or coloring.  The areas in which my family lived had an immense impact on me as a child and adolescent.  We lived, as so many do, in suburban neighborhoods built on and surrounded by old farmland.  Growing up, my favorite pastime was to walk aimlessly through the forest hedging these two separate spaces and wonder at the flora, fauna, and landscapes I would find along the way.  Working mainly with clay and found materials, both natural and manmade, I attempt to blend the natural with the contrived elements of our modern existence.  My goal is to give that viewer the same sense of finding something long forgotten or unnoticed.  I do not aim to create “new” things, but instead to recycle and reinvent what already exists in a new and intriguing aggregation of information.

The Catherine J. Smith Gallery is located at 733 Rivers Street in Farthing Auditorium on the Appalachian State University campus in Boone, NC. Admission is free. Hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call 828-262-2569 or visit www.art.appstate.edu/cjs