Open Studios showcase student work – The Orion

Both Studio Art and Interior Architecture students in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program displayed their work around both Ayers Hall and the Arts and Humanities Building for this semester’s Open Studios Day on Thursday. 

The day was split up with studio art students having faculty and class visits 10 a.m.-noon and 1-3 p.m. The interior architecture students presented their work from noon-3 p.m. in the Open- Air Collaborative Space on the second floor of the Arts and Humanities Building. 

Open Studios happen each semester in the BFA program as an opportunity to hear feedback from professors and fellow students while also giving students experience interacting with the public viewing their work in a gallery setting.

Esmeralda Aguayo, who is double majoring in interior architecture and studio arts, with an emphasis in drawing and painting, and minoring in art history, sees these Open Studios as a chance to practice networking and how to navigate conversations with anyone who asks about their work. 

“I think Open Studios reflect what your experience as a professional artist is going to be like,” Aguayo said.

It took around seven weeks to complete the collection of work she displayed, exploring muscles and movement of the human body with charcoal. Aguayo depicts the human form in an almost-fleshy manner. 

Her largest drawing was done in a three-hour figure-drawing session while the others were done over a course of a couple days, said Aguayo.

Each artist participating in Open Studios was required to have their artist statement next to their works, and Augayo explained that her work is not meant to “attempt to answer anything” but instead serves as a way for her to “explore identity, personal history and the views we hold about our own bodies.”  

Many students drew inspiration from their past for their works presented. 

Artist Cynthia Saucedo, a transfer student majoring in both studio arts and art education, displayed works that reflected her perspective on her culture in her own rendition of the Chicano Art style, according to her artist statement posted along her canvases.   

“As the only one who’s necessarily focused on cultural art, I like to show my culture and I like to show the school or the community or whoever wants to see what I see my culture as,” Saucedo said.

She hopes that those who don’t connect with her work at least feel more educated and can see her perspective. 

As Open Studios happens each semester, students who are in the program can have many different opportunities to share a variety of their work. 

BFA student with an emphasis in drawing and painting, Dylan Charlton, displayed 12-feet-long paintings on canvas in the last Open Studio, but this semester he worked within the “gray area” between drawing and painting with pastels on wood.

 “If you saw my stuff last year, it was more thinking about confronting the viewer and getting in its face but this work is more passive in its approach,” Charlton said. 

The use of negative space in the works reflects the isolation Charlton faced as a gay person growing up in a town that “didn’t have a strong queer presence” he said in his artist statement. 

Along with paintings and drawings, there were several sculptures displayed. 

Artist Leandro Cultraro had his work in the hallway of the second floor of Ayers. He recently had his Way of Living show in the B-So Space from Sept. 23 to 27. Photo taken by Nadia Hill on Oct. 10.

Chaz Honey Hennessy, a fifth-year in the BFA program with a focus in sculpture, even brought snacks for audiences. 

Hennessy’s piece, “Bolsa Chica Bonfire,” has driftwood from Long Beach suspended with thin plastic monofilaments reinforced with a wood frame standing at 63 inches.

This is Hennessy’s last Open Studio at Chico State. He fell in love with sculpture a decade ago at Long Beach City College under Coleen Sterritt, professor and faculty coordinator of the sculpture program, he says.

Hennessy uses recycled plastics and litter as well as concrete, steel, bronze and clay to commentate on ocean pollution and Hennessy’s own “interpersonal relationship to the ocean” according to his statement.   

“I view art as a community and I really love the idea of people coming in and being inspired by work,” Hennessy said. 

Many students, such as  Hennessy, who displayed work for Open Studios also will have their Culminating Solo Exhibitions in the B-SO Space on the first floor of Ayers. 

Click here for more information regarding events in the arts department.   

Nadia Hill can be reached at [email protected].