23 April 2019
Valeria Rodriguez
Leave your “sorrys” at the door.
On Friday, April 19 the Galleries of Contemporary Art (GOCA) started holding its annual UCCS senior art show, “Unapologetic.”
The exhibit will be free and open to the public until May 18, Thursday through Saturday from 12 – 5 p.m. at GOCA.
“Unapologetic” is an art show dedicated to the ruthless expression of a dozen senior artists on the quest to encourage dialogue with their audience. Supported by the artwork they developed at the hand of their unparalleled backgrounds and interpretations of the world, these artists plan to feature authentic pieces they have been working on for the past several months.
The twelve featured artists include seniors Love Aritus, Nicole Brewer, Joshua Hardin, March Gotthoffer- Ducharme, Brittany McNeil, Mia Mras, Chavez Padilla, Grace L. Rouse, Deborah Schoen, Amanda Symonette, Clark Valentine and Heather Windom.
After sitting in the classroom for the past several years learning about art, these seniors will work together to at last have the chance to curate work for a public exposition.
This opportunity, and the required course, provides experience and preparation in the business of art before these individuals graduate and have to confront individually the industry within Colorado Springs or outside its borders.
After this professional experience, the artists are prepped and ready to arrange their own seminars outside of the classroom setting.
This includes everything from directing lighting onto their work to handling documentation involved with making a business out of the art compositions they have planned or produced.
“A good opportunity for us to see for us as artists what it looks like to be in a professional world after this,” said Clark Valentine, addressing the importance of this event for the students involved.
Clark Valentine is not only a senior in Visual Arts but also the curator for this year’s senior art exhibit. As the curator, Valentine has assisted the other artists in the show in selecting their pieces and also helped lay out the outline of the show, in addition to being a featured artist in the exhibit.
Valentine said that one of the bigger challenges of curating the show was to collect everyone’s artwork and have all the pieces displayed as a united gallery.
Valentine had to forgo a plan that fairly publicized each artist’s talents, since he was accounting for twelve creative minds and their diverse engagement with art, including drawers, painters and sculptors.
“Deciding how to make a show cohesive with all these different ideas being put into play, making sure everyone has equal representation,” he said.
Valentine shared that he is most excited about seeing his colleagues “defend their work and the creations they are passionate about in an intellectual setting.”
As a result of the growing industry of visual arts in Colorado Springs, students and members of the community alike are invited to come support and recognize the happenings of the visual art community.
Valentine suggested that students will be able to find a topic of interest in the art provided at the exhibit.
“This is just the light at the end of the tunnel, we’ve been working on this for so long, and just to be able to see it hung up and have our professors, peers and artists of the community see our work and for us to gain exposure is really exciting,” he concluded.
Info Box: For further questions on this event, contact the UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art at [email protected] or for further details on the artists as individuals visit the UCCS website at http://uccspresents.org/features/2018-19/meet-the-artists-unapologetic.