Show at UVSC features artwork by 14 students

OREM — When Utah Valley State College art student Dyami Sorensen began her senior art project a year ago she was going through personal struggles.

But as she worked through those problems her art changed, she said, and became more of an experiment.

"These were things I couldn't verbalize except through my art," the student oil painter said.

Her works and the works of 13 other graduating seniors are now on display in the Bachelor of Fine Arts show at UVSC's Woodbury Art Museum through April 28.

The students first presented proposals to get accepted into the show. Those proposals included how much space they would require. Some took whole rooms, while others just a wall.

Each of the artists spent the last year refining and developing their talent for the annual show, now in its fourth year, museum art director Marcus Vincent said.

They've each reached the high point in their college experience and are displaying their best works, he said. Their works include photography, illustration, graphic design, sculpture, painting and drawing.

Sorensen's works are abstract oil paintings on wood that explore the energy and life that comes from the creative process, museum registrar Robin Despain said.

As part of the college requirements for graduation, art students must exhibit their works, though not necessarily at the Woodbury, Despain said. Some students exhibit at the UVSC library and others at the tiny 401 Gallery on campus.

Two students took a room each to display their art. Ryan Buffington is exhibiting eight pieces in which he painted the human form coupled with emblematic images. The interpretation is left to the viewer, Despain said.

Ernest Brenner took another room to set up his "Transformation," which includes the shift of an adult spirit coming from the heavens to occupy the body of a tiny human baby.

The art is "site-specific," Despain said.

Once the show is over and the art is taken down it no longer exists in that form. To set it up in another location could change the meaning, she said.

Other artists and their works are:

• Andrew Lange, whose specialty is illustration.

• Noriko Honda, a graphic design student who created several pieces depicting ethnicity and its layers in the United States and her native Japan.

• Nicole Parker, a photography student who emphasized the movement of dance.