The final installation of BFA exhibits at the Grunwald opened Wednesday, with an opening reception planned for 6 p.m. Friday at the gallery. Two of the artists showing their thesis work in this round of exhibits are Rachel Ankney and Kayla Dunscombe.
Ankney’s exhibit, “Good as Gold,” combines photographs, GIF and sculptures revolving around a personal theme.
“I have a chronic condition called maxillary sinusitis where I have to have surgery, and I have polyps and a lot of sinus breathing problems,” Ankney said. “I have a lot of medications, a lot of doctors visits, so the work is all about kind of glorifying and idolizing my prescriptions and the life of having a chronic ?condition.”
The process of putting this work on display has been therapeutic in a way, Ankney said. Through her work, she said she is able to cope with some of the more uncomfortable aspects of a condition she knows will never go away.
“It’s my way of having an aesthetically pleasing view or take on being sick and the stupid medicine bottles I have to buy all the time or see all the time or I lose,” Ankney said.
The medicine bottles themselves are representative of the reliance maxillary sinusitis builds on certain medications over time, she said.
Ankney said she collects medicine bottles now and uses many as both subject matter for photographs and sculptural components in her pieces.
“I have accumulated a lot and realized how much I depended on it, but then also forming dependencies on some of the medications,” Ankney said. “I have an altar piece in there titled ‘Codeine Queen’ because I get a lot of codeine to sleep and breathe.”
Ankney said she came to IU not knowing what she wanted to do in the art world and, with the help of the professors in the fine arts school, she was able to figure out her true focus.
Ankney said she advises younger artists not to be afraid to pursue art as a career, especially if it is what they are passionate about.
“I changed my major three times even though in high school art was what I really wanted to do,” Ankney said. “I didn’t think that was what I could do for a living, but there’s so many directions you can go with art. If you really love it, take some classes, you might really fall in love with it just like I did.”
Another artist displaying this time around, MFA painter Dunscombe, crafts works revolving around themes similar to more sculptural work she created around her studio.
“In my studio I’m building actual installations, like sculptural worlds and that’s what all these paintings are mostly based off of with the exception of one,” Dunscombe said. “It’s called ‘Outside Inside.’ It’s just kind of like a small still life based off the same concept.”
Dunscombe added that her goal is more simpler work that can be interpreted in distinct ways based on the person looking at ?the art.
The works are their own worlds, Dunscombe said, but made in a flat, stylistic way that allows people to form their own judgments about the piece.
Dunscombe said her artistic inspiration came from an MFA student who graduated last year and worked in textiles, as well as established painters of the past.
“Hers are like really abstracted fabric,” Dunscombe said. “They kind of turn into landscapes, almost, or bodies. I like a lot of formal painters. I’m in anatomy, it’s a drawing class here. I’m basing a lot of work off of that style, measuring angles and that kind of thing.”
This semester’s pieces, Dunscombe said, rely a lot more on use of space than past work she has done in the school.
“I’d done paper collages and water color that were so jam-packed there was no empty space in them,” Dunscombe said. “This semester is a lot different for me because I’ve been focusing on doing areas with big blank spaces to kind of open ?them up.”
To young artists, Dunscombe said not to build a career based on what will make the most riches.
“Don’t think about things like money,” Dunscombe said. “When I started here I had absolutely no intentions of doing art because I thought, ‘OK, that’s not realistic.’ Then I came and took a drawing class just for fun and ended up in a painting program. Don’t fight your urges to express yourself artistically.”
