To culminate his last semester as a fine arts major at Cal State Fullerton, fifth-year sculptor Owen Wilkins showcased \u201cConstructed Patterns,\u201d his first exhibit in the Leo Freedman Gallery, at a public reception on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The campus galleries are updated every other week with three student artist showcases on display. Five total groups are shown throughout the semester. On display from Oct. 14 to Oct. 18, Wilkins\u2019 pieces belong to the second round of student gallery exhibitions this fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI make sculptures to communicate my observations of the world and my philosophical musings through the layers of meanings contained in and around the objects I create,\u201d Wilkins wrote in his exhibition notes. \u201cI want to spark thought and exploration in my audience, to poke them and confuse them just enough to tip them over the edge of the philosophical rabbit hole.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wilkins completed his six constructed pattern sculptures this summer in about a month, with his largest and most time-consuming piece featuring a multitude of individually glued drumsticks.<\/p>\n
The title \u201cExpanding at a Decreasing Rate\u201d hints at what the sculpture exemplifies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe universe is expanding at a decreasing rate. We started at the Big Ban \u2014 exploded. It’s getting bigger, but that expansion is slowing down, which means eventually it will stop expanding and start shrinking and return it back to a single point, and that’s the significance of this piece. The bottom layer of sticks is perfectly symmetrical. It’s a mirror,\u201d Wilkins said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rather than garnering inspiration from a particular artist, Wilkins\u2019 passion and creativity are fueled by his lived experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201c[I get] inspiration more through personal experience and pain, not physical but more emotional pain. Also things that I wish were different about either the art world, specifically myself or our power structures,\u201d Wilkins said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His second largest sculpture on display, \u201cThe Shaky Foundations of Knowledge,\u201d is made of wooden drum shells, steel drum shells, steel drum hoops, aluminum and various nuts and bolts, contributing to its striking and rhythmic appearance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cConstructed Patterns is designed to explore the dichotomy between order and chaos, repetition and randomness. This work uses drums, drum parts, and drum accessories as pieces of iconography to represent these patterns and lack thereof,\u201d Wilkins wrote in the description of the piece.<\/p>\n
Wilkins\u2019 overarching message is that it is important to decompress and enjoy life with the limited time that we are given.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea, the message of the piece, is everything ends, nothing’s permanent. Everything that gets done will become undone,\u201d Wilkins said. \u201cSo nothing matters. And I think when nothing matters, nothing has to matter. It gives us a lot more room to relax and try and enjoy it in all aspects.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pedro Maradiaga, CSUF alumnus and social media strategist for the College of the Arts, said these exhibitions allow students to enhance their artistry by examining alternative means of expression outside of their expertise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the best way to do good art is to get involved in other forms of artwork,\u201d Maradiaga said. \u201c\u200b\u200bIf you’re someone that draws, you should definitely go see music, go see dance, cause then you can see how people move.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Amy Tran, a CSUF alumnus and former studio art major, mentioned that these exhibits motivate and inspire her artistry by seeing how other art majors execute their creative vision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like it broadens my knowledge on the stuff you can do, especially because I do glass blowing and a lot of other sculpture art,\u201d Tran said. \u201cI feel like I get to not only learn different materials you can use to make art, I can just see how others think to put stuff together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To culminate his last semester as a fine arts major at Cal State Fullerton, fifth-year sculptor Owen Wilkins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,2308,12837,6612,8673,12836],"class_list":["post-14537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-art","tag-artist","tag-gallery","tag-sculpture","tag-visual"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}