The 102nd Annual Student Exhibition for the School of Art and Art History opened last weekend at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, awarding over $5,000 in student awards.
The competitive, juried show began in 1914 and is held each spring semester to highlight works created by students in the OU School of Art & Art History, said Jessica Farling, director of public engagement at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum.
According to Farling, each student was allowed to submit up to three pieces. 52 students submitted work for the show, and 32 were selected.
This year’s show has work ranging from freshmen students to graduating MFA students, from sculpture to photography.
“The exhibition shows the diverse works being created by current OU art and art history students,” said Farling.
Joy Reed Belt, director and owner of JRB Art at the Elms, was this year’s guest juror, and she took about a week to make her selections, Farling said.
Student Gina Butler's charcoal and acrylic painting "Jumbled Carousel" is one of the works being shown.
Butler describes her process for this work as freely layering loose expressive horses on top of white paint, then adding the carousel poles, choosing golf to emphasize the grandeur of a carousel.
“I believe that we can live entire periods of our life in anxiety or depression, without a conscious understanding of the brokenness in our own lives," Butler said about her work. "We live in suspended fear like a carousel horse, trying to keep our lives together while constantly denying the problem, pretending that the pretty golden decorations are enough because we think they’re supposed to be.”
The museum and its staff were given the pieces two weeks prior to the show's start and took only nine days to prep the gallery for opening night, Farling said.
“Unlike most of our exhibitions that are planned years in advance, this exhibition comes together both quickly and organically,” Farling said.
One of the awards given opening night is the T.G. Mays Purchase Award. The student piece that receives this award becomes a part of the museum's permanent collection, she said.
This year, the T.G. Mays Purchase Award went to Bella Blaze for a film and video piece entitled, "Dorothy."
The award began in the 1960s and has continued each year since; all winners of the T.G. Mays Purchase Award have their work hung in the computer lab of the Bizzell Library on the ground floor, according to Farling.
The show is currently on display at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and will be open until May 15.
