CASSIE TOMLIN/arizona daily wildcat "Touching the Surface" - Studio art senior Andi Allen will have an opening reception for her one-woman show Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Kachina Lounge at the Student Union Memorial Center.

Artist Andi Allen gives a new meaning to the word "recycle." In "Touching the Surface," her new exhibition in the Kachina Lounge, she takes ordinary objects and puts them in different contexts, creating humorous, poignant and mysterious works of art.

Working in many different fields, including photography, sculpture, weavings and craft, Allen takes a non-traditional approach to conveying emotion. One might say that her mixed media pieces are anything but ordinary.

"I like to incorporate ordinary objects with found objects and take them out of their context and put them into a different context," she said. "Give them new meaning, basically."

Searching through junkyards to find some of the materials, Allen creates mannequins with extravagant pink hairstyles made out of packing peanuts. Mounted on pristine golden platforms, she adds a sense of irony to many of her works.

Another piece consists of a three-foot-tall piece of black wool coiled into the shape of an ice cream cone lying on top of an air duct. Entitled "Grief," the object symbolizes the stresses that Allen encountered throughout the year. Incorporating strange buzzing and chiming noises coming from a CD player located inside the work, Allen utilizes different artistic elements giving the work a sense of atmosphere.

"(Sound) touches another sensation, which is what art is supposed to do," she said. "You know, interact with your senses and make someone feel something. So, that's just another way of incorporating, bringing people in."

Allen has always taken a non-traditional approach to art, but her background is more functional. Interested in theater and costuming, Allen initially worked with fashion design, and is now pursuing a minor in costuming. This inspiration is evident in one piece, where she takes palm fronds and turns them into corsets.

Over time though, Allen branched out (no pun intended) and created individualistic art.

"I discovered more that I was into the more creative individual atmosphere than the functional, make it so people can buy it sell it. The cheap materials quick and fast," Allen said.

Instead, she uses the materials themselves as her muse. Working with natural shapes and the bends that they provide, she weaves, coils or glues objects using her emotions as a guide. She strives for simplicity and mystery in what she does, hoping that her art will have an effect on the viewer.

"I definitely want to affect people," Allen said. "And I think that's what good art can do. If you can affect people whether they're disgusted or they're happy, or upset, or it brings them sadness ... I definitely would like people to walk out remembering something about it."

If anything, Allen's art will at least make us sit up and think next time we throw something away.

"Touching the Surface" is located in the Kachina Lounge in the third floor of the Student Union Memorial Center. It will run from Friday to June 1.