While social distancing has become the new norm across the country, the staff at the UVU Woodbury Art Museum has been hard at work producing digital exhibitions. A virtual gallery of student works opens April 13, 2020. The collection includes 230 pieces from 90 student artists and eight graduating BFA students. This new and immersive experience can be viewed online via this link.
“We’re responding to a community need by providing cultural resources,” said Lisa Anderson, director of the Woodbury Art Museum. “People turn to the arts for inspiration and comfort in times of crisis. Even though we aren’t meeting in person now, we’re still adamantly working to fulfill our mission of making the arts accessible.”
The collection includes fine art in every medium: illustration, photography, ceramics, paintings, film, and more. Highlights include Kevin Wellman’s mixed-media installation “A Look Within.” This provocative display explores the human psyche through different lenses — literally. The piece cleverly reveals distinct images when observed through colored filters. A look at the multiple layers is available online.
“This project is intended to help us to break through the mirror and explore a little deeper into our emotions and how we may feel about them,” Wellman said. “We can either look at them in their multifaceted chaotic entirety, or we can choose to focus on a singular aspect of our emotions by viewing the piece through one of the color filters."
BFA student Jessica Booth’s mixed-media exhibit titled “Through the Looking Glass” is inspired both by Lewis Carroll’s novel of the same name, and her own journey of personal healing.
“I have had the theme of Alice and her world in my art for several years now,” Booth said. “I had been really sick for several semesters, and that semester I was able to start working toward a treatment that completely changed my standard of living. With this change, I began working with brighter colors and more expressive, abstracted forms, and the first of my Alice works was created. Ever since, Alice has been a symbol of life experience for me.”
Booth’s piece “Finding Ourselves in the Looking Glass” consists of organic abstract shapes made from paper and intentionally shattered glass. Photos can be found online.
“The work I create isn’t supposed to be perfect or traditionally beautiful, but instead to show the beauty in unpredictability and chaos that is a huge part of each of our lives,” Booth said.
