April 14, 2004

Boise State Presents 2004 BFA Thesis Exhibition: "A"

“A,” an exhibition highlighting the achievements and visions of 13 diverse women, opens Friday, April 23, in the Visual Arts Center at Boise State University. A free reception will be held from 5-9 p.m. in the Liberal Arts Building (Gallery 1) and the Hemingway Center for Western Studies (Gallery 2). Free parking for the reception will be available in the Liberal Arts parking lot. The exhibition, which runs through May 5, displays a culminating body of individual work by bachelor of fine arts students. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon-5 p.m. Saturday. The artists and their work are as follows: • Emily Booth’s paintings explore the essence of place through the juxtaposition of geographic elements, subtle text and faded images in retrospect to pictorial recollections of the mind. • Nancy Brossman’s landscape prints reveal her love of the region in which she lives. Often produced outside and on-site, her portraits of Southwest Idaho combine dry-point engraving and acid etching on copper, finished and printed in the studio. • Brooke Burton constructs miniature dioramas out of paper and uses pet birds as actors. She then stages the birds “performing” everyday activities. The results are hyper-realistic color photographs that seem playful but have an underlying edge of something dark and disturbing. • Jenni Brown’s paintings and sculptures are records of a physical process while the energy and enthusiasm involved remain evident in the finished works. She seeks to evoke an emotional response and to set a mood. • Debbi Evans’ “Conversation Piece” is an installation representing 21 anonymous real women. This is a collaborative project between the artist and the women using their personal items, their own words and music to represent themselves as honestly as possible. Using found objects and donated items, each woman comes to life as she reveals how she views herself and how she believes others view her. • Sylvia Hamilton’s sculptural work explores her ideas about the processes of life, aging and the desire to escape from the trap of time. • Heather Hugues creates illustrations inspired by Celtic Irish art. She renders characters from Celtic mythology, incorporating knotwork drawn from medieval manuscripts. • Angela Katona-Batchelor’s work deals with the pain, breakdown and regeneration of the human body. Her work is inspired by her realization that despite all of the tragedies and suffering we go through, life is still meaningful and there is hope for something better beyond our physical existence. • Annie Murphy’s art is driven by the development of personal iconography that avoids cliche feminist imagery, while adding her own personal layer to the complex social structure of what it is to be a woman in the 21st century. • Jolena Nelson’s work is a representation of the different stages of transformation in a woman’s life. Her oil paintings captivate the iconography that represents “woman” and the traditional role of her as human and as spirit. • Kelly Pereira’s photo-constructions explore the discomfort of socially constructed placements of women through the ages, while also showing her own progression to escape these roles. • Lora Stoyanova’s contemplative paintings of toy clowns and everyday objects re-examine the shifting meaning of artifacts in one’s own life. The imagery is informed by the artist’s current geographic displacement, childhood and past experiences. • As a graphic designer, Misti Tracy is constantly faced with combining imagery with typography and is interested in how those two elements work with and reinforce each other. Tracy’s work also deals with the creative process behind how ideas are formed. -30- Contact Kathleen Keys Gallery Director 208 426-3994 kathleenkeys@boisestate.edu Media Contact Kathleen Craven communications and marketing 208 426-3275 kcraven@boisestate.edu