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Student show highlights diversity within program

Annual student competition...

The 21st Annual Juried Student Art Competition - on display now at the Arizona Gallery in the Memorial Student Union - highlights the diversity of fine arts majors within the University of Arizona.

"What Moves You," which exhibits art by the competition participants, is sponsored by Bank of America and was designed to offer students the opportunity to present their work to the public.

In addition, the show introduces students to the process of juried exhibitions. Elizabeth Cherry, owner of the Elizabeth Cherry Contemporary Gallery, 441 E. Grant Rd., and juror for this year's show, selected three prize winners for their accomplishments in visual art.

This year's first place prize of $200 was given to Mary Babcock for her photographs, which document earthworks of fabric stretched over desert vegetation.

In the first of these photographs, both "Untitled," the fabric stretches like a sail, both sheltering and intruding upon desert life.

In the second, a desert landscape is seen filtered through fabric punctured by thorns. On a literal level, the fabric becomes a metaphor for the barrier civilization has erected between nature and humankind.

In both works, Babcock's use of fabric symbolizes civilization and brings up concerns about how civilization impacts desert habitations while offering the hope of potential beauty when these two habitats coexist.

The second place prize of $150 was given to John Richey, whose work deals with societal segregation on a more conceptual level.

In "Un-," Richey hangs the negative words used to distinguish "normal" from subversive behavior on labels that echo canned goods on a shelf. Just below them, the tops of five people peer out from the bottom of the canvass, each with their own blank label.

"Youth Label Cult-ure" continues Richey's theme, only this time compartmentalizing the silhouettes of people - each given a stereotype label and a stereotype cause for the label.

Richey's work becomes especially poignant because the stereotypes and labels are universal and concern people on a personal level, both from the judged and judging perspective.

Cherry selected photographer Roberto Lopardo for the third place prize. His stark photographs involve nude bodies and mannequins interacting with hard architectural spaces.

The two-tone blurry images invoke a sense of dreaminess as well as scenes from low-fi video cameras. The closeness in proximity of the mannequins and models juxtaposed against their ambivalent interaction creates a tension that removes the emotional and spiritual aspects from these mechanical beings.

Beyond these works, Cherry selected a number of student works that include drawing, painting, photography, printmaking and mixed media.

Theresa Redinger's work, "Paper or Plastic?" is unique as a wall sculpture of a skirt and shirt modeled out of grocery bags. The environmental concern intended by the work is immediate and powerful, but the work also functions on a level that questions the relationship created - and justified by western culture - between women and nature.

Also noted are fine arts senior Patti Venezio's mixed media prints of urban grids, which explore childhood memories and transform urban objects into metaphors for cognitive organization, and Amy Dearbaugh's exhibit, "Coffee, Second Series," which features an obsessive glance at the bizarre chance appearance of coffee stains on paper - an image any student can relate to.