In the Reynolds Gallery on the second floor of the Memorial Student Center, students can view MFA Community Showcase, the newest exhibit from the MSC Visual Arts Committee.
This exhibit features six artists from the Department of Visualization Master of Fine Arts (MFA).
In June, the VAC asked the MFA students to create what it means to be part of the Texas A&M community. The art is used to reflect on their values and concerns. Each piece is intended to be a large-scale piece.
VAC gallery director Daniel Molina is in charge of installing and preparing gallery for artwork. He decides where things go and chooses what art the gallery displays.
“We decided on community because around the time there was a lot of disasters and disaster relief and we kind of felt inspired by that,” Molina said. “I just think its really neat that were able to put all this in the Memorial Student Center.”
Visualization graduate student Bailey Rogers used visual art to explore world building in a large-scale sculpture.
“I’m hoping that my pieces can encourage people to engage their creativity, and I think as a community that’s a fun thing to do together and something that we can use as a tool to promote empathy among groups of people, so it ties back into the community a little that way,” Rogers said.
Visualization graduate student Krista Fay used taxidermy, bats and social media to inspire her painting.
“I used the taxidermy to animal mounts as like a parallel to the social media posts, so a taxidermied animal mount is killed, pulled from life, made up, made to represent life and look good, and then idolized and put on a wall much like our Instagram, Facebook selfies are like separate from life but made to be better and posted on our social media walls,” Fay said.
Visualization graduate student Meg Cook crocheted figures to create conversation about sexual assault. One of every five figures is damaged to represent the statistic that one in five undergraduate women are sexually assaulted across college campuses.
“Part of the issue is that people don’t feel comfortable like talking about things that have happened to them or issues like that, so I’m hoping that kind of highlighting this will make people realize like maybe we need to be a stronger community for these people so they feel comfortable telling us issues that they’re having,” Cook said.