Shayna Bicknell, Road, 2011
This week I attended the gallery talk with three of the BFA Candidates: Joshua Torbick, Katherine W. Austin, and Shayna Bicknell. Joshua presented his work first and talked about how his childhood experiences have influenced the type of work he does now. His three sculptures were all different but still fit together in their general atmosphere. Even though they are essentially furniture they don’t look very comfortable to sit on, but sitting on them would give you an interesting experience. Joshua’s sculptures look like they took a lot of labor. I wanted to know exactly how he made them, because that kind of work is always a mystery to me. Katherine talked about her work as a record of the time she has spent working this year. She focuses on space and relating close color relationships. I liked the paintings that had a sort of warping to the space and her choices of when to exaggerate it. All her paintings had recognizable spaces that were easy to get into and move around. Shayna’s artwork seems very abstract to me. She talked about how she doesn’t get bored looking out the same window to paint because nature is always changing. At first it was hard for me to see what was going on in the paintings, but after looking I could make out the landmarks. I particularly liked the neon orange and light blue in one of her medium sized paintings.
Putting It Together...Let's Art 