This semester VIU visual arts students end the year by showcasing their eye-popping artwork in two shows at The View Gallery and building 325. Both shows begin on April 18.
Progressions, an exhibit hosted in building 325, showcases work from first, second, third, and fourth-year students. Before the exhibit starts, there will be an awards ceremony for the students from 6:30 to 7:30 pm in building 210. Classrooms 123 and 213 in building 325 will be converted into galleries, as well as the hallways and corridors.
Progression has run for over 30 years, though each year the title of the exhibit changes.
“They submit work to us, faculty, as a jury. We select the work and then students actually help curate and hang that work in the actual art building,” Ball said.
The work from Progressions is for sale and the process of going through a jury teaches students about submitting work on a professional level.
“We don’t accept all the work,” Ball said. “They might [submit] five or six pieces and one or two of them will be accepted.”
Spectrum, the exhibit hosted by The View Gallery, will run from April 18 to May 9. The show’s purpose is to present the work of 14 students graduating from the university’s four-year BA visual arts program. The View Gallery’s hours are Tuesday to Friday, 12–4 p.m.
“We called it Spectrum because there are some many of them that we had to find an umbrella kind of title that would incorporate all the diversity in the work,” said Gregory Ball, Visual Arts Professor.
The diversity of the work ranges from sculpture to chainmail, watercolour paintings to printmaking, installation work to ceramics. Ball said a lot of the artwork is very hard-hitting and contemporary.
Ball says he has tears of joy seeing students he has taught for the past four years make it to the end of their degrees. He remembers some of them coming in for their very first year and how they’ve become more articulate with their own bodies of work.
“Some of them will gravitate towards painting and printmaking, others towards photography and sculpture,” Ball said. “They find their niche and then develop that. So I’m proud.”
