Gallery 120: Foundations Student Art Exhibition

Creative work by first-year drawing, painting, ceramics, photography, and design students

The Foundations Student Art Exhibition is showing now through Wednesday, November 23, 2022, at Gallery 120. Art shows and exhibitions are hosted at Gallery 120’s brick-and-mortar location in the atrium of the Fine Arts building on the Inver Hills Community College campus in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota. You can also visit Gallery 120 online.

The Foundations Show is a collection of creative work by first-year drawing, painting, ceramics, photography, and design students at Inver Hills. The work reflects the exploration of media, style, skill, and subject matter our students experience in the college’s on-campus studio art courses. Art foundation coursework encourage students to harness their creative talent and move on to more advanced levels of study, often in pursuit of an A.F.A. in Art, an associate degree designed to open doors to transfer to a four-year school or direct entry into the art industry.

WHAT: Foundations Student Art Exhibition

WHO: First-Year Inver Art Students

WHEN: Now thru Wednesday, November 23, 2022

WHERE: Gallery 120

Fine Arts Building
Inver Hills Community College
2500 80th Street East
Inver Grove Heights, MN 55076
General: 651-450-3000
Gallery: 651-450-3101

Student artist perspective: Grace Morton

Age: 19
Hometown: Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota
Major at Inver Hills: Mathematics Transfer Pathway A.A.
Career plans: Something in engineering, probably aerospace

Three words that describe you as an artist:
CREATIVE. PERCEPTIVE. IMAGINATIVE.

Artist Statement: I like using a lot of colors in my painting; colors can have a lot of meaning.

Q & A

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned so far in your Inver Hills art class or classes?
Your art may not look good to you, but it will look good to somebody.

What do love most about creating art?
I like painting whatever I want and having it around. It also contains a surprising amount of risks, especially when you feel like you’re close to finishing a painting. A whole lot of mistakes can be made, but they’re not super hard to fix or accept them. Lots of risk taking, lots of acceptance.

Where do you hope to be as an artist in 20 years?
I don’t see myself as having a career in it in the future, but I know that I’ll have a lot of my paintings hanging on the walls of my room. I just like having another creative outlet to relieve stress or any other sort of emotion.

Grace’s paintings…

Student artist perspective: Annelise Evans

Age: 18
Hometown: Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota
Major at Inver Hills: A.A. with Emphasis in Anthropology
Career plans: Undecided

Three words that describe you as an artist:
WEIRD. PERFECTIONIST. ORIGINAL.

Artist Statement: My work is about challenging myself and seeing what I can do and what I can be capable of. I chose to do an octopus because I wanted to expand my skill set by challenging myself on something I did not think I could do.

Q & A

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned so far in your Inver Hills art class or classes?
I learned that if I can push myself that I can go beyond what I think is my limit.

What do love most about creating art?
The thing that I love most about creating art is the ability to turn vision in my mind into a material object that other people can see.

Where do you hope to be as an artist in 20 years?
I have no plans as of yet.

Annelise’s ceramics work…

Student artist perspective: Jade Meyer

Age: 18
Hometown: West St. Paul, Minnesota
Major at Inver Hills: A.F. A. in Art
Career plans: Planning to be an illustrator

Three words that describe you as an artist:
ANGSTY. BUBBLY. PASSIONATE.

Artist Statement: My name is Jade Meyer and I do traditional illustrations. I create scenes and people/characters. I mostly use graphite or ink. I create art because it helps me to calm down, lower my anxiety, and I want people to enjoy it as well.

My influence on my art is mostly taken by reading comics and manga, and the shows that I would watch growing up. I’m mostly inspired by Hayao Miyazaki, the creator of Studio Ghibli. When I’m creating, I take inspiration from the artists behind the shows or the movies.Whenever I’m creating, it would mostly be fantasy-inspired and I like to put my emotions in my art.

Jade’s drawings…

Q & A

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned so far in your Inver Hills art class or classes?
Not to compare yourself to others, and that everyone is at a different skill level. I also learned to not be so intimidated with creating art, it should be fun and not terrifying, but at times I find it to be difficult to create something, but that’s a part of the process of creating. Also, to remind oneself that you’re all there to give each other support on the journey of an artist.

What do love most about creating art?
What I love is the different processes of creating. I like the sketch phase of the beginning of my project and adding more details to it always makes me happy. I also love the reactions that people get from looking at my art; I like to hear feedback from people and how it impacts them.

Where do you hope to be as an artist in 20 years?
I hope to be a freelancer selling my illustrations and living in my own space. I hope to also sell a book with my illustrations in it to bring people the same amount of joy and emotions it did for me.