When an Exit is an Entrance: The 2003 Student Art Show

Rachel Morey’s hat took the director’s prize at Exit, the 40th Rice Student Art Exhibition. It was more than a hat, it was sculpture you could stick on your head. Its title, The Hat, had the same slightly ominous ring as film titles like The Blob or The Fly. Crafted from gray and tan shades of felt, formed and blocked into amoeboid shapes that oozed on top of each other and down either side, it looked a little like it might overcome its wearer. According to Morey, “The Hat began as an extension of a sculptural hat-making course, but quickly developed into a problem-solving exercise.” Its dual role as both art object and avant-garde fashion accessory only adds to its appeal.

On the wall opposite The Hat, Emily Kirkland’s Superparasite Series reinterprets old scientific illustrations—her large-scale color prints featured a giant lime-green mite, a rose-colored tick, and a red, snaking tapeworm. The bright pop colors were somewhat at odds with their icky subjects. Commenting on the appeal of her work, Kirkland wryly says, “Everyone likes a giant pink bug. On one hand, it is kind of insidious and, on the other, it is kind of lighthearted.”

Kirkland created the prints with a technique she learned in Karin Broker’s print class. After greatly enlarging her original one-inch image on a copier, she used the copy itself like a lithographic stone. In traditional lithography, the artist draws on a stone with a grease pencil. The stone is covered with gum arabic, which the grease resists. Then ink is rolled over the stone, sticking to the greasy lines and repelled from the rest of the stone by the gum arabic. Paper is laid on top of the image, and the whole thing is run through a press. Kirkland’s process was essentially the same except that she coated the paper copy with gum arabic and the ink stuck only to the ink image from the copier.

Kirkland describes the process as “unexpectedly simple. All of a sudden the heavy lift you need for the lithography stone is no longer needed. You can see people making them at their kitchen table.”

Rice’s academics obviously feed into students’ artwork as much as studio instruction. This year, Morey received degrees in art, art history, and mechanical engineering; her engineering skills are especially evident in the elaborate structure of her hat. In her artist’s statement she says, “Engineering classes seem to inspire people to dream of space shuttles, oil refineries, and odd shapes in carefully balanced arrangement.” Kirkland received a B.A. in architecture and feels that the detail-oriented procedures and processes of designing structures enhanced her affinity for the processes of printmaking. But for Kirkland, “When I have been working on the computer in architecture all day, it is nice to physically make something. It is almost architecture on a small scale.”

Andy Walker uses the Internet to make aesthetic choices for his paintings. Working with a variety of neutral tones and a gridded canvas, Walker assigned a number to each shade of paint, and then he visited the website http://www.random.org, which hosts a random number generator. According to Walker, people use the site for things as varied as “scientific studies, online gambling, or selecting which first grader is going to be on hall duty.” He uses his random numbers to determine which colors go where in his painting. Walker develops the conceptual framework for his art and then lets chance fill in the blanks.

Sally Sprout, an independent art consultant, curated the exhibition. She met with each graduating art major and worked with them to select the pieces that best represented their body of work while at Rice. Sprout also gave feedback on the artist’s statement that each student was required to write. For Sprout, working with the students was “great. I really enjoyed them a lot.” She feels that the gallery’s desire to put students through a process of deadlines and dialogue is extremely important as it mirrors professional practice. Walker was especially impressed by the experience. He returned to Rice for a fifth year to receive his B.F.A. Applying to M.F.A. programs next year, he plans on a career as an artist. His dialogue with Sprout “provided an introduction to how my work might function outside of the academic world.”

—Kelly Klaasmeyer