Camosun College’s 2020 Visual Arts grads have had to take their year-end exhibit to the internet. Originally, the Visual Arts grad show was supposed to run for two weeks in April, but because of current limits on in-person activities due to COVID-19 concerns, it will run from May until September online. Second-year Visual Arts student Autumn Pye says that it was a hard adjustment for a lot of students but the class persevered and now Loop Eyes is ready for viewing.
“A few of us stepped up and got stuff done and really just made the most out of it,” says Pye.
The show consists of photography, ceramics, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture; Pye says the different mediums really capture the essence of the Visual Arts program at Camosun.
“We did a little bit of insight on Loop Eyes, what it means—the end of the loop as you’re coming to graduation,” says Pye. “It hasn’t been like there’s a beginning and an end. It is more of a loop, just because of everything we’ve been through. There’s been so many ups and downs.”
One of the things that’s so great about the Visual Arts program at Camosun, says Pye, is that students are taught so many mediums.
“It very much, I think, gives the essence of what the Visual Arts program is at Camosun, just how vast everything we learn is,” says Pye. “I think it’s really great being able to showcase all that, and everyone’s different strongpoints.”
For her project, Pye worked in photography and ceramics, and when it came to working with the pottery wheel, she put her own spin on it.
“I wouldn’t say I’m like the average photographer—I don’t do nature, food shots, stuff like that,” she says. “I just like to pull from my own perspective and emotions, like when I see something that’s kind of weird, or like it shouldn’t belong there, I just have this strong urge to take a photograph of it.”
For her piece in the show, Pye made 10 ceramic ashtrays, perched cigarettes in them, filled them with Alphagetti and took a photo of it. Ceramics wasn’t something she was interested in before Camosun, but once she discovered it here, she put her own style into it.
“I’m not very good on the [pottery] wheel, so I just kind of took it onto my own,” she says. “I have my own weird spin that I put on things. That’s what makes me most excited about art.”
Pye says she likes to have her pieces connect to her but also be open enough that other people can look at it and gather their own meaning and put their own story behind it.
“I had about 10 ashtrays, and they didn’t look similar, like the project suggested,” she says. “So I filled them with Alphagettis and tossed in a few cigarettes.”
Loop Eyes
Until September
loopeyes.weebly.com