Life > April 22, 2004

By Natalie Bonomo

Old Gold and Black Reporter

Each week this month, the upstairs of Hanes Art Gallery has been adorned with the honors in art projects of four senior Studio art majors. 

Joe Morgan, the preparator for the gallery, was more than pleased with the artwork the students produced. 

“I love them. Their work is really fantastic,” he said. 

Megan Scheminske’s paintings, which were shown from April 5 to 9, were the first of the projects displayed in the gallery. Her series, painted on large canvases, was an examination of psychological issues she struggled with for many years. 

“I wanted to feel sort of a release of the issues I was dealing with,” she said. “I wanted to hit my audience in the face and show that there was nothing mysterious or elusive to my problems.”

Loose experimental brushwork and style contrasted with stark bright images in Scheminske’s paintings, deal with two extremes of chaos and control. Scheminske, who has been involved with the art department four years and hopes to go into a career in art, was excited about the opportunity to have her own exhibit. 

“The input from the faculty was really nice, having five professional artists critique my art,” Scheminske said. “I always wanted to do honors. I didn’t really think about it. It just happened.”

Last semester, Dasha Rettew began painting self-portraits. She became interested in perception, hoping that through it she would be able to gain a greater self-understanding.

These paintings became the basis for her series, “I to I,” which were displayed in the gallery April 12-16. 

“I progressed into more abstract self-portraits as my feelings and mood shifted and changed,” Rettew said. 

The 13 self-portraits were intentionally hung at eye level.

“I want them to be confrontational,” Rettew said. “People can approach them, and not only do they look at the artwork, but I stare back at the viewer,” she said. 

Each of the pieces took a few days to create. Painting, however, was not the most challenging part for Rettew. 

“It’s a process.  The generation of ideas takes a while,” she said. 

Through the process of painting, Rettew was able to discover more about herself.

“The paintings speak for themselves,” she said. “You can look at them and can tell what mood or feeling I was in. That’s the goal at least.”

Emily Johnson’s exhibit, “Strati: sculpture and painting,” is being shown in the gallery until April 23. Johnson’s sculpture and inspiration—based exhibit consists of a 24-foot wall she installed in the gallery. 

“It will be really different. I used mixed

mixed mediums