By Olivia Semsel, Arts Management Intern
Our fifth Student Response Exhibition, Outside the Box, is open, and you can come check out the unique creations of 34 students (and vote for your favorite)!
This is our next post in a series featuring the student artists who have created one or more pieces displayed in Outside the Box.
Meet our featured artist, Kat Bowen!
Kat is a Junior Marketing Major, with minors in Painting, Arts Management, and Management and Leadership, from Fort Wayne, IN!
She came to Miami for its strong arts and business program; and because she enjoys the size of the campus as well as how friendly everyone is. At Miami, Kat is Vice President of People, Animals, & Welfare (PAW), plays intramural sports, and does marketing for campus stores. For fun she loves to read, paint, sketch, listen to music, cook, play sports, and just spend time with friends. Her favorite genre of art is Oil Painting, and her dream job is to work for a digital marketing agency.
The Student Response Exhibition asked students to think beyond physical limits with the concept of a box. Kat has two pieces on display in this exhibition! For Kat’s first painting, titled Prague Skyline Abstraction #2, she states,
“I continued to explore this concept of man-made versus nature with the merging of the skyline into the sky. It is difficult for the viewer to understand where the skyline ends and the sky begins. I decided to change from the previous with the use of saturated rather than muted colors and explore solely geometric shapes. In order to help the viewer understand the original image, I used blues, greens, and purples in the ‘sky’ with warmer colors such as red, orange, and yellow in the structures below. Furthermore, I incorporated shapes from the previous piece into this one. I wish to challenge the viewer to look at things differently than they normally would with the lack of a horizon line and the meshing of structures and sky.”
For her second painting, titled Prague Skyline Abstraction #3, she states,
“I utilized geometric shapes as well organic brush strokes to give, again, this feeling of man-made versus nature. I then began to combine these shapes up into the ‘sky’. Even with this, the piece lacked the idea of challenging the viewer to see things differently. There still was, in my mind, too much of a distinction between the buildings and the sky to get my point across. In order to problem solve, I changed the orientation of the piece. These pieces challenge the abstract concept of ‘beauty’. People may take a few seconds (if that) to gaze upon a piece of art, a crashing wave, or a cityscape. Thinking outside the box and breaking objects into their elements, shapes, colors, etc., can be extremely refreshing and beautiful in a new and exciting way.”
Come see the exhibition and vote for your top three favorites! Voting will continue until April 6 and the exhibition celebration and awards ceremony will be held on April 9, from 7-9 p.m.
