There are only a few more days left to check out high quality art work from post-secondary students in Nanaimo.
The Nanaimo Art Gallery’s two exhibits, Progressions and Explorations, feature work from Vancouver Island University’s best and brightest student artists. The exhibits are currently on display at the Nanaimo Art Gallery’s VIU campus location until Friday (May 30).
Justin McGrail, art history and theory professor at VIU, explained that the exhibits are months of hard work by the students and that every year he is always surprised by the quality of work.“Every year as a faculty I am both surprised and given a great deal of satisfaction in that the students themselves, their work is always original and the craft and the quality definitely reflects the training they receive at VIU,” McGrail said. “I think this year, for insistence, the ceramics are really quite original.”
Progressions features paintings, sculpture, ceramics, drawings, photography, and printmaking from students in the visual art program.
“The upstairs exhibition is multi-media. We’ve got basically everything you could imagine. Paintings, ceramics, sculptures, and video projections, which are very good pieces,” McGrail said.
The second exhibition, Explorations, features predominately 2-D pieces from the students in VIU’s Arts 486 program. The exhibit was curated under the guide of 486 program instructor Jane Cole and features works by students, Kristie Bush, Sara Grover, Amanda Holley, Angela Marston, Karen McLeod, Kim Nixon, Melissa Partee, and Kirstyn Rogers. The exhibit is located on the main floor of the gallery and McGrail says visitors will notice a striking display of work.
“The thing about downstairs is it is hung really well,” McGrail said. “They did a really good job this year. The students and the professor do the hanging and so I think that people will find it to be a quite a visually striking exhibition.”The two exhibits run until Friday (May 30) at the Nanaimo Art Gallery’s VIU location. More information can be found at www.nanaimoartgallery.com
