(Photo courtesy of Celina Jimenez)One of the most distinguishing qualities of the average American college student is a mindset of craving and confusion. What do we crave? Understanding. Direction. Purpose. Is anyone entirely clear on how to achieve these? No.
ASU’s community of student artists has been blowing my mind recently with the way it examines and embraces the chaos of this mindset and uses it to create familiar, yet unequivocal work. The artists showcased during Saturday’s Normal Noise release show were no exception.
The show, which took place in ASU's Secret Garden, was hosted in order to showcase a few of the artists featured in the latest issue of the Normal Noise, a zine created by the founders of student-run literary magazine Normal School Review.
Cody Inglis, the magazine's arts editor, said every piece in the zine is exclusive and sits in its own context.
"Each piece has its own space and category, but they still intermingle with the written works and are interdependent," Inglis said.
Araña Schulke, a printmaking senior, described his exhibition as a process of unlearning moments and bringing them back together in an attempt to create "reconstructed memories." To accomplish this, Schulke tore up his most notable photographs from over the past three years and collaged them together in an effort to "distill" the photos.
"It was a process of digesting what happened in the photos," Schulke said. "I focused on trying to understand their most pivotal parts."
Intermedia sophomore Sonia Garcia also vaguely used drawing on the past as a theme. Garcia's crisp, clear works reflected her interest in expressing iconography and religion in a manner that served as somewhat of a narrative for her own life.
(Photo courtesy of Celina Jimenez)She described her biggest piece, a play on the Virgin Mary, as a sort of "self-portrait" that represented a self-conflicting relationship with religion. The piece features a wistful Virgin Mary donning a septum piercing and a cigarette.
As a whole, Garcia says she is still experimenting with her personal style as an artist, though she did say she often uses line work and stippling to create softer value transitions.
Also featured in the show was architecture senior Angela Lufkin, whose work added a crisp linear perspective to the overall ambience of the show. Her experience drawing building designs for various architecture classes gave her an interesting outlook on the artistic process.
"In the (architectural) design process, you end up making so many beautiful things," Lufkin said.
The vibe of the art show as a whole was pensive and open, featuring all artworks on two long wooden panels on the stage; the rest of the area was unfilled. The space in the Secret Garden created an interesting juxtaposition of spacious clutter that fit well with the themes of the artists.
The pieces featured by printmaking major Ariana Essian added a subconscious element to the mixtures of nostalgia and self-reflection that were prevalent in the other works.
Essian described her work as a portraiture that reflected a sense of unconscious thinking and the way the subconscious essentially allows humans to experience two lives at once.
For this reason, many of her pieces feature drooling beings, representing, in her words, a "tangible form of conscious thought."
As a whole, the creative purposes of the Normal Noise were vividly enhanced by the insights of these diverse student artists, and their work beautifully represented the chaos and artistry of youth.
Reach the reporter at celina.jimenez@asu.edu or on Twitter @lina_lauren.
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