As a resident of Aurora, Colorado, Paul Weiner was personally affected by the shootings that injured 70 and killed 12 people at a nearby theater.

As a result, Weiner created a screen-printed pattern that was rendered from redacted text in the legal documents of the suspect’s court case.

“My artwork aims to deal with the trauma in my own community, and I see it is successful when it brings people to consider the reasons for the rise of active shooter incidents over the past decade,” said Weiner, a senior painting major.

Weiner will have this piece displayed in the Critical Mass Exhibition Competition at the 914Works Gallery on East Genesse Street starting Thursday. He is one of 10 undergraduate students whose work was chosen to be shown.

A reception for the gallery will take place Feb. 5, one week after its opening. On the afternoon of the reception, jurors will choose the three best pieces that demonstrate outstanding artistic achievement. Allison Kirsh, curator of the exhibit, said the first place prize will be $150, while the second and third will each take home $50.

Kirsch, a senior sculpture and English and textual studies dual major, curated the Critical Mass exhibit as part of her project for the Renée Crown University Honors Program Capstone.

“I wanted to give students an opportunity to be in a juried exhibition and have practice exhibiting their work in a gallery prior to graduating,” Kirsch said. “This art exhibition displays a very wide range of media, styles and a very good combination of pieces.”

The pieces in the exhibit are not completely traditional works of art that can usually be found in an exhibit. One student, Katherine Rehbeck, will have a series of poems on display that illustrate themes of girlhood, digital identity and relationships.

“Ideally my piece in the show, ‘20 Windows,’ will be swallowed by a bigger project sometime in the future,” said Rehbeck, a senior film major in VPA. “It deals with some ideas of how we relate to others in real life or digitally.”

In preparation for the exhibit, Kirsch required that students who wished to have their artwork displayed submit a curricula vitae, resume, images of previous work, proposal statement for artwork, image script and their proposed objective. Kirsch then brought in jurors to review the submissions and selected 10 artists to represent the best thesis work. In doing so, Kirsh said she wanted to give artists the opportunity to learn how to exhibit their work in a gallery.

“Becoming an artist is learning how to make work, but also learning how to exhibit it in a gallery. To learn how to show your work is just as important as to learn how to make it,” Kirsch said. “It is important to note size, balance, spacing and what objects look well together. The gallery requires that the artwork be aesthetically pleasing.”

John Catania, a senior painting major, said he is looking forward to seeing everyone’s artwork, as it is a good way for Syracuse University to display its diversity.

Catania said it took him only two weeks to complete “Peel,” a work he considers a self portrait which was based off one of his previous sketches. Catania said he used traditional oils, techniques and personal reasoning.

“(My piece is based on) current ideas and emotions going on in my head to create a more individualized and personal feel,” Catania said.

Holly Wilson, a senior sculpture major, will have on display a smaller scale sample of her installation artwork.

“My work acts as a threshold of consciousness that questions the viewer to reassess his or her domestic routine,” Wilson said. “Much too often, we are encapsulated within our own personal world, only prompted to care if it directly affects our situation.”

Said Wilson: “I do not really view being an artist as a job, even though it is a full-time cause-and-effect process. Art is a lifestyle.”

Published on January 29, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Ian: ijromake@syr.edu