By ROBIN STANTON GERROW
BG Independent News
This year’s Fall BFA Thesis Exhibition at the Bowling Green State University’s Willard Wankelman Gallery highlights the work of 11 graduating students preparing for the next step in their careers. The exhibition, showcasing arts education, digital arts, graphic design and studio art students, runs through Sunday and will be a highlight of this year’s ArtsX event.
Two of those students have discovered both careers as well as a long-term collaborative relationship working in glass. Partners in the glass studio, Sophie Pineau and Nick Zisko explained their work and why they chose that particular medium.
“It stemmed from the creative process of working with the material,” Zisko said. “I found it really challenging at first. It felt like learning how to draw all over again, where you constantly have to put your nose to the grindstone and really try to build up that skill. I came here for drawing and painting, and I just didn’t find the process very challenging. I didn’t feel like I was moving forward as much as I wanted to. But with glassblowing I was consistently challenged to better myself to get the skills up to what I thought would be enough to create like a full body of work.”
“Glass kind of drew me in because it’s naturally hypnotic,” Pineau said. “There are so many different contexts where we’re able to work with glass. I’m an energy worker as well and have my Reiki 2 certification. The way that glass coincides with energy work is really magnificent for me. I think it’s a beautiful way to segue into a creative career because glass very simply needs hands.”
A consideration for both students was the career prospect of working in glass.
“I would say BGSU has one of the best glass programs in the nation,” Zisko said. “We have really incredible staff and a great program. Glassblowing as an industry in the U.S., is constantly looking for workers, it’s looking for new hands, new people to work, not even just industrial, but creatively in making new artwork.”
“Like Nick said, we really do have a nationally renowned program,” Pineau said. “Part of the appeal for glass for me is because of its application in the world and because of the community that already exists within the material.”
Pineau and Zisko both drew from personal experiences in creating the bodies of work in the exhibition.
“The work you’ll see from me is all one installation, but it’s composed of 28 hand engraved Pilkington glass panels,” Pineau said. “Throughout the creation of my thesis work, I was really interested in psychological space and processes relating to self-reflection.
“Really what I’m focusing on is seasonal change,” she said. “As the imagery progresses from left to right through the panels, there’s representations of the four seasons. And then there’s mirrorized imagery starting from the first panel and evolving on to become a representation of emotional learning. The ‘life’s only constant is change’ kind of philosophy.”
Zisko’s installation tells a very intimate story of illness.
“I have a couple pieces that all work in tandem in my installation, but what centralizes it is a Kodak slide projector rotating through 48 different decal-fired glass slides in a piece called ‘A Tender Examination,’” Zisko said. “My thesis was centered around chronic illness and the alienation of the body from the inside and the outside. It can feel very isolating from yourself and from others to be so sick constantly and to feel like nobody sees it. I was looking at a lot of motifs from ancient Greek and Roman sites, and they were physical representations of internal ailments. I felt really connected to them because it felt like the same feelings I have now, to see it has been a through line through time and humanity. Illness is such a constant throughout human experience. It’s one of the things that we all are going to experience at some point in our lives.”
Pineau and Zisko are both planning to stay in the region and continue their studio work together.
“Nick and I have some strong momentum built as far as working together,” Pineau said. “We have some collaborative ideas and a pretty extensive vision board.”
Other students exhibiting are Jenna Barnowski, Frederick M Cox III, Chloe Knight, Alexis Maciejewski, Leah Maldonado, Sarah Petersen, Connor Stevens, Jason Urban and Elizabeth Wank.
According to Stephanie Garafolo, the curator for the BGSU Fine Arts Center Galleries, the Thesis Exhibition is an important part of preparing students for a career in art.
“This is essentially a culmination of all of the work they’ve been doing over the four years they’ve been studying at the School of Art,” she said. “Going through this acquaints them with the actual process of showing their art. They go through a jurying process, they have to install their works, and they experience an opening. All of these are things essential to their work as artists, but also to building a career that is sustainable in the long term.”
