Physical art, as opposed to the usual musical and theatrical type, filled the halls of the Green Center on Friday evening.
This past friday, DePauwCappella opened for Artsfest’s student art gallery debut in the GCPA’s Great Hall rotunda which featured the artwork of six upperclassmen. The variety of artwork ranged from photographs to paintings to sculptures.
“I didn’t know there were going to be photos and paintings,” said sophomore Shelby Bricker when asked about what she thought of the gallery. “I just assumed that they were all going to be paintings, so it was cool that it was a little bit different than I expected.”
Artsfest is a week and a half long celebration of the arts that contains a range of events stretching from film screenings to speakers to performances.
This year’s theme was Art and Origins which was voted on by the Artsfest faculty which usually has roots in different departments to bring an interesting perspective every year.
“Last year it was utopia and dystopia, which I think had more of a focus in the humanities,” said co-coordinator junior Kathryn Woods. “This year they wanted to kind of coordinate art with an area that it might not often be in relation to, so they took more of a science and anthropology approach.”
Woods, along with co-coordinator junior Molly Brennan, spearheaded the planning of the gallery. “Last year it was a mural and this year Molly and I decided to do an Art Gallery with individual artists having their own individual work,” said Woods.
A fan favorite at this year’s exhibit was the “Codependency” sculpture by senior art major Julia Briggs.
Briggs decided to focus on human want and emotion for her sculpture this year. “I’m trying to capture the human obsession with intimacy. Like, everybody needs intimacy. So the figures in my work exaggerate that crave for attention,” said Briggs. “I had to figure out how to make that clear visually. So they’re one creature and they have three legs for two people and they’re codependent on each other, which makes them vulnerable.”
“Codependency” is the first installment of her series. “Each senior has their own body of work that’s significant to them,” said Briggs. “Mine is about human intimacy and co-dependency and so that is one of a series of sculptures I’m making.”
Briggs’s sculpture was one of the pieces Bricker saw during her visit to Artsfest. “I thought the sculpture was cool and the artist behind that had a really cool reasoning behind it,” said Bricker.
Making sure the students were acknowledged and given the chance to step out of their comfort zone in a professional setting was Woods’s main concern. “I think it’s really important because I think with Artsfest sometimes students will think it’s just for adults,” Woods said. “So I really love getting the chance to help organize the student art project because it gives students the chance to have a voice in Artsfest.”
The gallery will be in the rotunda until this Friday, and Artsfest events will be going on all week, ending with the DePauw University Chorus concert at 3 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium.