Pitt Studio Arts Student Work Showcased in Free Exhibition Jan. 23-Feb. 15

PITTSBURGH—Works of art by University of Pittsburgh studio arts majors—including paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, and mixed media—will be featured in a free public exhibition that runs from Jan. 23 through Feb. 15 at the University Art Gallery, Frick Fine Arts Building, Schenley Drive, Oakland. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The show highlights the work of students who participated in Summer 2012 research opportunities, either on the Pitt campus or in Wyoming on the Spring Creek Preserve—4,700 acres of land rich with dinosaur fossils and donated to Pitt in 2006 by Wyoming rancher Allen Cook—as part of the Summer 2012 Wyoming Field Study, a three-credit, 16-day course in conjunction with the University Honors College. During the course, those students met in Denver for two days of gallery and museum tours, then headed north to the high-altitude short grass prairie between the Laramie Mountains and the Medicine Bow Range, where they worked in an encampment of tents, a local motel, and a makeshift studio space in a 1919-era bank building.

The exhibition includes works by:

Julia Betts, a junior and winner of a Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Award, who investigated self-portraiture in photography. She altered the images using digital tools, then used the altered elements as reference points for painting on canvas, which she then stitched into mixed media sculptures;

Christopher Cassady (A&S ’12), also a winner of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Award, who worked on a large-scale wood carving that expresses his concerns about familial relationships; and 

Gianna Paniagua, a senior, Brackenridge research fellow, and Wyoming Field Study participant, who explored personal concerns in relation to health, spirituality, and ancestry through photography, drawing, two-dimensional mixed media works, and paper cutting.

Other Wyoming Field Study participants whose work is on display include Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences junior Emily Golden and seniors Jay A. Grassel and Abby Ryder.

An opening reception is scheduled for 4 p.m. Jan. 23. Gallery talks with Undergraduate Research Award participants will take place at noon Jan. 30; Wyoming Field Study participants will discuss their work at noon Feb. 6.

Visit http://www.studioarts.pitt.edu/node/342 for more information on the Wyoming Field Study. 

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