VIU visual art majors are graduating and they have artwork in a Spectrum of colours and mediums to show for their efforts.
The Spectrum: Visual Art Major Grad Show opened Thursday night at the View Gallery and continues until May 9.
The show features paintings, sculpture, digital fixtures and more and vibrant colours dominate, as Vancouver Island University art and design professor Gregory Ball said students aren’t afraid to make bold statements with their art.
Winning top prize, presented by the Nanaimo Art Gallery, was Orden Mack for his piece the Knight’s Regalia, created out of metal chain mail, scale mail, fur and fabric.
Mack said the regalia was inspired by a mythological reaper, with European and Japanese influences and his own imagination.
“I had no idea if it was going to even fit together, but it’s funny, because with chain mail, there’s a certain language that it tries to speak, a certain pattern, a certain rhythm that if follows,” he said. “And trying to find that space in between, where this piece and this piece can comfortably exist together, I think that’s where true artistic expression really starts to show, and define itself.”
Mack said the VIU program gave him “constant” support and one-on-one time with instructors, and he said it was special to have free rein with art mediums.
“This isn’t the end product. There’s still a lot of further development that I want to do in the future,” he said. “I don’t really know what it will look like, but I’m really excited to see what happens.”
He praised the work of his classmates that is on display at the Spectrum show.
“I’m glad I could see everybody present their work and express themselves in this way,” Mack said. “It’s a really great show, it’s really full, a really good turnout [to the opening] and a lot of really good energy being bounced around.”
The View Gallery is open Tuesday to Friday, from noon-4 p.m.
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