The art community at Masuk is made up of many talented individuals who are able to share their creativity in various visual ways. Whether it be with colored pencils, paint or any other media, art students at Masuk share their thoughts and interests in ways that reflect their personal styles. Here are some examples of artwork from these students.
“The main inspiration of most of my artwork comes from nature, specifically flowers. So, with this one I guess I wanted to use flowers to portray the nature of natural inner beauty,” said Grace Callanan.
“This piece represents a few of the things that I value and conveys my interests, with the pencils and sketchbook representing my love for drawing, the technology showing my love for video games and the internet and the headphones reflecting my very unique taste of music. Without these items, and what they represent, I would not be the person I am today,” said Cummings.
“Basically, my premise for my sustained investigation was climate change and its effects on the environment. This is the first in the series. What I wanted to show in the drawing was how revolting pollution is and how it takes over the world. In this picture, there are only a few birds sitting on the power line and some flying away to represent how animals are affected by it,” said Kauke.
“So that piece obviously is an anglerfish while the seaweed is encasing it. To me, the seaweed represents anxiety, depression and things that we as humans get caught up in everyday life, especially now. All while the anglerfish is sitting in the middle of all that. It may seem gross and scary looking, but it sheds its light in total darkness. The light represents that good that can come when things may seem dark and scary because sometimes we find our best path even when we can’t see it. While being entangled in everyday life there will always be a ‘light at the end of the tunnel,’” said Kubik.
“Most of my pieces have a specific idea/motivation/meaning behind them, but this one was just technical practice as an assignment for studio. The assignment was to use dramatic lighting to create a piece by drawing the negative space on black paper. This was definitely a challenge because typically I’m used to drawing through solid shapes and then adding shadows later, so this was a lot of fun. I chose the candle light just because I thought it looked cool and my motivation was purely fun. I’m happy with the way it came out because I definitely did have fun making it,” said Minch.
“So this piece is interesting because the whole idea started from it being an Andy Warhol inspired piece,” explained Liz. “He is known for doing Pop Art, with one image from pop culture and repeating it using multiple bright colors that all differ to create this almost abstract, realistic piece. Pop Art always was a subfield in art that appealed to me with its bright colors and unique take on pop culture, so this project was one I was very excited about. I knew right away that I wanted to use the iconic logo for The Rolling Stones. I picked this logo not only because it was such a recognizable one, but it also holds a special place in my heart. I love older music. When I was young my parents introduced me to all the music they listened to from the 60s to the 80s, and I absolutely loved it. I always listen to music from the 50s all the way to the 80s, either with my friends, my parents or just alone in my room. The thing about pop culture is that there is a very cookie-cutter view about society. Everything has to look a certain way in order for it to be popular. This art style sort of breaks that stereotype: everyone can recognize The Rolling Stones symbol with or without the classic red, black and white colors. Individuality can inspire pop culture, and being unique and yourself is what makes you stand out. The Rolling Stones, through their music, also talked about breaking away from stereotypes and being their own band that cared about the music they created and the people they inspired. This whole piece was inspired by the idea that Pop Art challenges “fine art” and blurs the boundaries of high art and low culture. There should be no hierarchy of culture or art. Inspiration can be drawn from anything in the world around you, it is just your decision to make something else into your own.”
All images from Monika Gagnon.
Masuk Free Press 