Fanshawe art students mix splashes of colour with everyday images in new paint exhibit

A group of Fine Arts students at Fanshawe College's School of Design are the faces behind a new art exhibition on display in downtown London, this month. 

The exhibit called "The Beholder" at the TAP Centre for Creativity, features paintings by 17 second-year students who drew inspiration from the London library, where they selected various images in books to create their paintings. 

Bold splashes of colour, paired with symbolic imagery that's unique to each student, aim to capture viewers and draw their eyes to the relationship between chaos, control and intentionality, said Billy Burt Young, a professor who organized the exhibit.

"[The exhibit's name] is ambiguous enough that it could mean a number of things and the viewer themselves is the most important component of the show," he said. "Without the viewer, the art really ceases to exist."

Student Jocelyn Fournier filled her canvas with a bright-coloured blend of fruits, architecture and technology. While the three themes seemed like an odd combination, Fournier was impressed with the way it all came together, she said. 

"Our goal here was to really work with projection and masking techniques with a low colour palette. I went for a more blue and pink colour palette," said Fournier. 

"I'm drawn to more nature sourced imagery and I wanted to mix it with some more technical elements like buildings and clocks and I wanted to mix it all together with the mystical and get a sense of how these things could interact."

Her inspiration came from a book about fruits from the Philippines and clocks manufactured in Ontario, especially one made in her hometown of Stratford, said Fournier. 

Delaney Mitchell's project showcases the opposite and takes a look at topics like death, consciousness and religion. The challenge for her was pairing brighter colours with a darker illustration of CT scans, said Mitchell. 

"What we were trying to do is project [images] from the books and make our own art from it, while reusing old art that might be forgotten," she said. 

"I'm really interested in how stress affects the brain and what people might think happens after they die, such as in Christianity and Paganism, and I wanted to incorporate different aspects of that just to focus a lens on something we all think about as people."

Mitchell said her paintings have received special attention from a group of children who were intrigued by the concept. 

Linus Klassen's piece titled "Incurring a Great Wrath" was inspired by a book about mushrooms grown in North America. He combined it with divinity and architecture to create confusion and a visceral response from those viewing "the gross stuff," he said.

"I'm very intrigued by the abject and the disgusting, I think it really brings out a reaction in some people," said Klassen. "They kind of go 'Oh my gosh' and I love to get that reaction from people, so that's what I really focused on."

For many of the students, including Klassen, this exhibit is the first time their artwork is being displayed in public. Although the experience has been nervewracking for Klassen, he's proud of the response his work has been receiving, he said 

Burt Young hopes audiences can enjoy the vibrant show and that it inspires other young artists to find imagery that speaks to them and repurpose it according to their individual styles, he said. 

The exhibit runs from Tuesdays to Saturdays between noon and 5 p.m. until March 22.