By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Fort Hays State University Moss-Thorns Gallery of Art is featuring its annual undergraduate honors art exhibition through April 16.
Ninety works are part of the exhibit.
Three of the students whose art is featured in the exhibit will also received $1,000 scholarships.
Haley Gottschalk
Scholarship winner Haley Gottschalk, a senior in ceramics from Denver, Colo., creates a combination of ceramics, sculpture and 2-D work.
Most of her work for the show is sculpture depicting the female figure and empowerment. She said she is trying to portray different emotions and feelings through the figures and decorative elements.
She was honored with a scholarship for her ceramic figure titled "Vessel." It is a ceramic, stone body clay sculpture that she formed through coil-building.
"I wanted to capture a feeling of movement in the body," she said. "This is a self portrait, and I wanted to highlight power in the core. As an athlete, I have been very cognizant of my body and strengthening my core.
"I wanted to portray an emotion of openness or flexibility and that feeling when you have a really good stretch and it just takes over your body."
Gottschalk fired the piece using a saggar process. The smoke colors the piece in this process.
"It is kind of a risk in the saggar firing. You don't have any control over it. I was really happy on how the smoke turned out," she said. "It follows the curve of the body and accentuates some parts."
Madeleine Stegman
Madeleine Stegman, junior in sculpture from Lawrence, casts in bronze and works in iron.
She said she is inspired by nature. She uses the human form in many of her pieces—body parts and spines.
"Organic forms, shapes, the human body is beautiful to me," she said.
Her awarded-winning piece is titled "Perennial Metal," and has a floral theme.
Most of the piece is hand-forged steel with some cast aluminum.
"I was looking at a vase full of flowers, and I was thinking, 'These are beautiful, but they're just going to die,'" she said. "I wanted to capture flowers in a more permanent state. I also included honeycombs, which included the cycle of the flower's life in a ring."
Vanessa Guzman
Vanessa Guzman, freshman in graphic design from Goodland, won her scholarship for a ceramic mask titled "Wrath."
Guzman created the piece for her ceramics 1 class. She was inspired by tiki masks.
Although she is a graphic design major, she said her classwork this semester has urged her to reconsider her major. She said she enjoyed the hands-on work she did and will likely be switching her major to ceramics.
Colin Schmidtberger, director of Moss-Thorns Gallery, said the exhibit allows FHSU to showcase the work of undergraduates. The college brings in an outside juror for the show.
"This is one of my favorite shows that we put on here in the gallery," he said. "Showcasing all of the students here in the department, seeing every area of work, that part is really inviting for the entire show."
