Junior David Armacost stands next to his print “Life in a Glass House” during the Summerfair Cincinnati Emerging Artist Exhibition Friday, Feb. 12. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
An Emerging Artist Exhibition, hosted by Summerfair Cincinnati, opened Feb. 12 and features 13 students and their artwork, three of which are from Miami University with various styles of artwork.
Junior David Armacost has artwork featured, with his favorite piece as, "Life in a Glass House" (LIGH). The piece was a pseudo landscape-based print.
"(My art) deals a lot with a lot of the depression and bleakness of the Midwest along with the paranoia in today's culture," Armacost said.
Armacost mentioned the specifics of LIGH, noting other pieces he has done following a particular theme.
"It is a sort of cookie cutter, Midwestern home overlaid with a lot of diagrams, and at the side of the house there is a surveillance camera," Armacost said. "It was part of small series I was doing based on the deterioration of our Fourth Amendment rights, which is the right for unlawful search and seizure."
Senior Leah Kandel also had paintings featured in the exhibit. All three of her pieces featured were part of a series, and all the pieces were "Untitled."
"With this series of paintings, I'm examining the role of perception in landscape," Kandel said. "So I started this whole series by just observing the landscape, sitting outside the art building at Miami watching clouds go by, just taking everything in. I went back to my studio and started experimenting with sculptural forms, taking those landscape elements and those natural experiences, moving it into something that's more tactile."
Kandel then transformed the experiences she created in the studio onto a panel of paint.
"It's really about that cycle of experiencing something," Kandel said.
Senior Nate Greene's work was the most diversified, including paintings and sculptures where one would look into a peephole and see an image. One image was even 3D.
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"I really wanted to change the way people were looking at my artwork," Greene said. "Instead of being able to stand far away and actually see everything, you have to get up close and actually touch the piece to make it even work."
Greene said his two favorite pieces were prints. The prints were of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc., and Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, portrayed as superheroes.
Students had to be nominated by teachers to be featured in the exhibit. Both Kandel and Greene said they were honored.
Sophomore Marcus Monte saw the works of all three artists, and liked Armacost's LIGH the most.
"It does a really good job of portraying a future of America with fewer rights," Monte said.
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