By snoadmin
Coming across student art becomes easy when galleries are set up in open spaces on campus during Arts Week at Cal State Long Beach.
The week-long festival, thought up by ASI Arts Commissioner and senior in art photography, Nadine Flores, commenced on Tuesday at 11 a.m. at the beach circle between the College of Business Administration Building and the track. This was where the first pop-up gallery was set up. During Arts Week, students have the chance to view original pieces of artwork from the art department, as well as partake in different art-related activities.
Works included in the pop-up galleries come from CSULB students with different backgrounds. Those who have their work displayed are not all from the art department.
“It was all inclusive. I included whatever they gave me,” Flores said.
The main purpose of the pop up galleries is to bring the art to students, Flores said.
“Access is defiantly important,” Flores said. “People on campus feel intimidated. They are spaces that people would not regularly walk into.”
She hopes to encourage students to consider walking into other galleries, such as the spaces on campus, which are held every week in the Fine Arts Buildings, and exhibits in the Long Beach community.
The gallery resembles a torn-out wall of an exhibit. Two large white boards, built by Flores’s brother Martin Donsa, stand next to each other and display different types of artwork, ranging from texturized paintings to crisp graphic design prints.
Drawing and Painting senior in the Bachelor of Fine Arts Program, Sonia Otero, submitted two of her most recent paintings, which are going to be used as inspiration for her final senior project. The small canvases only take up less than one-third of one of the white walls, but hold promising prospects for the finished product.
“The theme focuses on the construction and reconstruction of architecture,” Otero said.
Cool tones of dark blues and forest greens make the harsh use of straight-edged lines and geometrical figures easier on the eye. The geometry is not meant to recreate any specific architectural structures, Otero said. Rather, it stresses the idea that she wants to get across.
“[The theme] is destroying history but recreating something new,” she said. “I use transparent painting to display a sense of time.”
According to a recent press release, the same collection of student works can be viewed throughout the week with the last appearance on Thursday in the central quad during 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Other activities on Thursday will include catering by the Lime food truck, free henna tattoos and a photo booth.
