From ceramics and textiles, to paintings, sculpture and experimental photography, a range of artistic mediums fills the Hokin Gallery for a new exhibition titled “Outside the Line.”
The exhibit features two dozen student artists experimenting with unfamiliar concepts, materials and techniques to challenge their own creative boundaries.
A piece that drew attention was Logan Basil’s piece “Rot My Heart,” which combines unconventional mediums with digital media to explore themes of queerness, obsessive-compulsive disorder and isolation.
“I really thought that the intersection of those topics is really interesting to me, and I really liked how the artists used the materials and the way they did,” said Spencer Stirewalt, a clinical social work intern from the Center of Student Wellbeing.
The exhibition was organized to encourage artists across disciplines to experiment with new forms of expression, said Mark Porter, the senior exhibitions coordinator for Student Spaces for Art and Collaboration.
“We have been talking about how we want to show work from as many areas of the colleges as possible,” Porter said. “One way to do that would be by proposing this theme where we show work where people are showing pieces that are personal experimentation.”
Among the featured artists is Alx Denise, a senior photography major who presented “Untitled,” a silver gelatin processed photograph transferred onto ceramic china in a sculptural piece honoring their grandmother.
Denise said that the work is deeply personal to them and felt it was important for others to see it.
“I was really trying to push myself to create something that I’ve never created before,” they said. “I do photography and I do like fashion, but I have never made something physical with my photography in this way.”
For co-curator Madison Yager, a senior double major in art history and arts and entertainment management, the exhibition highlights how artists can expand their practices by using unexpected materials and approaches.
She noted that many photographers, for example, experimented with textiles that are not typically associated with photography.
“Works that dealt with another subset of one’s practice that you wouldn’t necessarily think of right off the bat, and really, in the show, to highlight creativity and new ways of thinking was really stressed,” Yager said.
Porter said one challenge of organizing the exhibition was presenting work by students whose programs do not typically display art in gallery settings.
“One of the challenges for this work was we were showing work by a lot of people who come from programs that do not naturally fit within an art gallery,” he said. “I was really excited about working with people who would be used to showing their work in the gallery, to help them with that process.”
Working behind the scenes at the gallery as the operations assistant, Mauricio Patino, a junior fashion studies major, said spaces like this give student artists an opportunity to share their work with a broader audience.
“It allows for talent to be recognized,” Patino said. “As artists, we kind of spend a long time doing the same thing over and over in our fields.”
Patino added that showcasing work in a space such as the Hokin Gallery is not only welcoming and comforting, but almost feels like a sense of pride.
Visitors also responded to the exhibition’s interactive elements.
Edie Danielle, a master’s student studying women and gender studies at DePaul University, said that’s what stood out to her.
“What I like about a lot of these pieces is how interactive they are,” Danielle said. “I think having 3D elements to an art piece is really good.”
Universal, vibrant and risky, are words that students and curators used to describe the unique submissions of these creatives.
Yager stated that the goal was to avoid a rigid theme and encourage artists to interpret the concept of “Outside the Line” in their own artistic ways instead.
The exhibit runs through March 30 in the Hokin Gallery on the first floor of the 623 S. Wabash Ave. building.
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